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Between  the  Testaments 

or 

Interbiblical  History 


Between  the  Testaments 

or 

Interbiblical  History 


By 
The  REV.  DAVID  GREGG,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

Sometime  Pastor  of  Park  Street  Church ,  Boston,  and  Lafayette  Avenue 

Presbyterian  Church,  Brooklyn;  novo  President  of  Western 

Theological  Seminary,  Allegheny,   Pa. 


FUNK  fif  WAGNALLS  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 
I907 


Copyright  1907,  by 

FUNK  &  WAGNALLS  COMPANY 

[Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America] 

Published  February,  1907 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I 

PAGE 

The  Jews  of  the  Dispersion  During  the 
Period  Between  the  Testaments     .      9 

CHAPTER  II 

The  Jews  of  the  Home-land  During  the 
Period  Between  the  Testaments     .     45 

CHAPTER  III 

The  Old  Testament  Apocrypha  as  the 
Book  of  the  Period  Between  the 
Testaments 85 


CHAPTER  I 

The  Jews  of  the  Dispersion  During  the  Period 
Between  the  Testaments 


CHAPTER  I 

The  Jews  of  the  Dispersion  Dur- 
ing the  Period  Between  the 
Testaments. 


WE-  are  interested  in  the  ancient  history 
of  the  Jews,  because  this  history  is  the 
gjjl  principal  story  of  the  true  religion. 
The  Jews  were  the  Covenant  People 
of  the  One  Living  and  True  God,  and  God  chose 
them  as  the  special  medium  through  which  to 
reveal  Himself  to  mankind.  They  had  a  genius 
for  religion,  just  as  the  Greeks  had  a  genius  for 
art  and  literature  and  the  Romans  a  genius  for 
government.  A  people's  genius  is  their  equip- 
ment for  service  in  the  world.  It  accords  with 
the  use  which  God  makes  of  them.  God  works 
naturally  in  the  realm  of  Providence.  One 
would  think  that  God  would  make  choice  of  the 
biggest  people  of  the  world  for  the  cause  of  re- 
ligion; but  no,  He  chooses  the  smallest  and  He 
chooses  them  because  they  have  a  genius  for  re- 
ligion. Andrew  Lang  says:  "One  tiny  people 
for  religion";  and  we  might  add,  one  tiny  land 
— i.  e.,  Palestine — in  which  that  tiny  people 
may  work  out  their  grand  mission. 
9 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

The  history  of  the  Jews,  as  it  relates  to  Pal- 
estine, the  land  of  the  priests,  and  of  the  proph- 
ets, and  of  the  psalmists,  and  of  the  Temple,  and 
of  the  Christ,  may  roughly  be  divided  into  two 
periods.  The  first  period  covers  the  years  and 
centuries  from  Joshua  to  the  Babylonian  exile. 
The  history  of  this  period  is  contained  in  the 
Old  Testament.  The  second  period  covers  the 
years  and  centuries  from  the  return  of  the  Jews, 
which  began  under  Cyrus,  to  the  destruction  of 
the  Jewish  national  power  by  the  strong  arm  of 
the  Romans.  This  second  period  is  the  subject 
of  this  chapter.  It  is  the  history  of  this  period 
that  we  now  seek.  It  is  the  period  that  lies  al- 
most altogether  between  the  Testaments  of  the 
Bible.  We  wish,  if  we  can,  to  fill  up  the  blank 
space  which  we  find  there. 

There  are  four  centuries  between  Malachi  and 
Matthew,  and  of  these  four  centuries  Bible-stu- 
dents ought  to  learn  all  that  is  possible.  Profi- 
ciency requires  it.  Four  centuries  are  a  long 
period.  There  is  room  for  immensity  in  such  a 
period.  You  can  pack  into  it  dynasties,  and  rev- 
olutions, and  discoveries,  and  eras,  and  whole 
libraries  of  history.  During  such  a  period  you 
can  change  the  face  of  the  whole  world  two  or 
three  times,  and  make  many  new  geographies, 
and  give  mankind  many  new  civilizations.    You 

10 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

know  how  often  this  world  of  ours  has  been 
changed  during  the  last  four  hundred  years. 
The  nations  of  the  twentieth  century  are  not  the 
nations  of  the  sixteenth  century.  There  was  no 
American  Republic  in  the  sixteenth  century. 
The  government  of  France  was  altogether  dif- 
ferent, and  so  was  the  government  of  Italy.  The 
Britain  of  to-day  is  not  the  Britain  of  1607. 
During  the  period  between  the  Testaments  of  the 
Bible  there  were  revolutions  that  were  literally 
world-wide.  These  could  not  but  affect  the  Cov- 
enant People  of  God,  and  tell  in  the  evolution 
of  the  true  religion. 

We  must  know  all  there  is  to  be  known  about 
these  revolutions,  if  we  are  to  be  truly  posted 
in  the  history  of  that  religion,  and  have  an  in- 
side view  of  things.  When  we  leave  the  Old  Tes- 
tament, the  history  of  this  period  is  necessary 
as  an  introduction  to  the  New  Testament.  To 
neglect  the  Interbiblical  story  of  the  Jews  is 
fatal  to  any  thorough  and  vivid  knowledge  of 
the  New  Testament.  When  we  open  the  New 
Testament,  Matthew  and  Luke  take  us  at  once 
in  medias  res.  Things  are  not  taken  up  by  the 
New  Testament  where  the  Old  Testament  laid 
them  down.  When  we  begin  to  read  the  New 
Testament,  we  are  in  an  entirely  different  world. 
The  empire  of  the  world  has  changed  from  the 
11 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

East  to  the  West,  and  the  whole  face  of  Jewish 
society  has  been  revolutionized.  New  things 
challenge  us :  a  score  of  questions  get  themselves 
asked,  and  demand  a  score  of  intelligent  and 
historical  answers.  This  score  of  answers  must 
come  out  of  this  Interbiblical  period.  These 
answers  are  between  the  Testaments,  or  they  are 
nowhere. 

Listen  to  these  questions! 

Here  is  Ca?sar  Augustus  issuing  a  decree 
"that  all  the  world  should  be  taxed!"  Who  is 
Csesar  Augustus,  who  issues  a  decree  that  is  at 
once  honored  by  the  world  ?  He  is  the  Emperor 
of  Rome,  which  is  now  the  great  world-power. 
But  what  is  Rome,  and  how  did  it  become  the 
world-power?  When  we  closed  the  Old  Testa- 
ment the  world-power  was  Persian.  Would  you 
call  a  man  a  thorough  Bible-scholar  who  could 
not  answer  that  question?  Here  is  Herod  who  is 
now  the  King  of  the  Jews.  Who  is  Herod?  Is 
he  a  usurper  on  the  throne,  or  does  he  come 
down  on  the  kingly  line  of  the  House  of  David  ? 
The  answer  again  is  between  the  Testaments.  Pal- 
estine is  studded  throughout  with  Greek  cities 
bearing  Greek  names.  The  Romans  did  not 
plant  nor  build  these  cities.  Who  did?  They 
were  planted  and  builded  by  the  Greeks.  Can  it 
be  possible  that  the  Greeks  were  a  world-power 

12 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

also,  and  that  Judea  was  a  province  of  their  em- 
pire? The  language  of  the  inhabitants  is  no 
longer  Hebrew.  Where  did  this  language  come 
from?  Was  it  once  the  universal  language  of 
the  world?  Instead  of  the  age-long  tendency  of 
the  Jews  to  idolatry,  monotheism  is  the  passion- 
ate faith  of  Jewry.  How  is  this  ?  There  is,  too, 
an  almost  universal  belief  in  the  immortality  of 
the  soul,  and  in  the  resurrection  of  the  body; 
and  this  belief  has  an  intensity  and  a  clearness 
and  a  sway  out  of  sight  of  that  which  we  find  in 
the  Old  Testament.  Did  this  intensity  of  the  im- 
mortality-faith come  to  the  Jews,  whom  Jesus 
looked  in  the  face,  from  contact  with  a  people 
who  were  noted  believers  on  this  line  ?  The  Other 
World  was  a  real  world  to  the  Greeks,  and  the 
body  had  a  large  place  in  their  concern.  Nobody 
taught  immortality  more  clearly  and  strongly 
than  Socrates;  and  Socrates  was  a  Greek.  Did 
the  touch  of  the  Jew  with  the  Greek  help  the 
Jew  in  this  item  of  the  immortality-faith? 
There  was  a  great  mingling  of  the  Jews  and  the 
Greeks  during  this  Interbiblical  period. 

Here  is  the  great  council  of  the  Jews,  the  San- 
hedrin,  presided  over  by  the  high  priest.  The 
Old  Testament  knows  no  such  body.  What  was 
the  origin  of  the  Sanhedrin?  Here  are  great 
and  influential  sects  among  the  people  with 
13 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

nothing  in  the  Old  Testament  to  correspond  to 
them — Pharisees,  Sadducees,  Essenes — when  and 
how  did  they  come  on  the  stage  of  Judaism? 
What  is  meant  by  the  Tradition  of  the  Elders? 
and  who  are  the  Scribes?  and  who  are  they  who 
are  denominated  as  the  Dispersion?  (Jno.  7 :  35; 
Jas.  1:1.)  In  every  Jewish  city  there  is  an  insti- 
tution of  which  the  Old  Testament  is  ignorant, 
which  is  the  center  of  the  social  and  religious  life 
of  the  people.  It  is  called  the  Synagog.  The 
Synagog  was  frequented  every  Sabbath — not  for 
sacrifice,  but  for  the  reading  of  the  Law,  and 
for  religious  discourse  and  prayer.  It  was  a 
democratic  institution.  Whence  came  the  Syna- 
gog, and  how  did  it  reach  its  power?  The  land 
of  Palestine  was  divided  into  three  parts :  Judea, 
Samaria,  and  Galilee — Galilee,  from  which  came 
most  of  the  Apostles  of  the  Master.  When  did 
this  division  become  a  map  in  Biblical  geography, 
and  by  and  through  whom?  The  very  Temple 
of  the  New  Testament,  in  which  Jesus  Christ 
taught  and  from  which  he  drove  the  money- 
changers with  a  whip  of  small  cords,  was  differ- 
ent from  the  Temple  of  the  Old  Testament.  Who 
built  this  Temple,  and  when  was  it  built,  and 
how  long  was  it  in  building?  To  this  Temple 
Jews  of  all  tribes,  not  only  from  Palestine  but 
from  all  provinces  of  the  world,  came  to  worship. 

14 


BETWEEN   THE  TESTAMENTS 

How  was  it  that  these  worshipers  of  the  Tem- 
ple had  a  world-wide  home?  The  answers  to  all 
these  questions,  and  more  also,  are  between  the 
Testaments.  If  this  be  so,  then  Interbiblical  his- 
tory is  a  period  in  the  story  of  the  Book  of  God, 
and  of  the  True  Religion,  which  we  should  mas- 
ter as  students  and  leaders  in  the  Church;  and 
a  period  concerning  which  we  should  instruct 
the  people.  It  is  a  period  that  is  informing,  and 
helpful,  and  fascinating. 

At  this  point  let  me  ask  this  question:  Who 
are  the  authorities  here;  what  are  the  sources 
of  our  information?  "Where  do  we  get  the  ma- 
terial out  of  which  to  work  up  this  period?  We 
have  such  modern  works  as  Rothschild's  History 
and  Literature  of  the  Israelites,  and  Rigg's 
Jewish  People,  and  Dean  Stanley's  History  of 
the  Jewish  Church,  and  Cheyne's  Jewish  Re- 
ligion After  the  Exile,  and  Dr.  Emil  Schurer's 
great  cardinal  work,  History  of  the  Jewish  Peo- 
ple, and  the  writings  of  Prof.  R.  C.  Charles,  the 
recognized  authority  upon  Jewish  apocalyptic 
writings,  and  Jerusalem  Under  the  High  Priests 
by  Edwin  Bevan  (1904),  and  The  New  Apprecia- 
tion of  the  Bible  by  Willard  Chamberlain  Lel- 
leck,  D.D.  (1907). 

Then  there  are  the  original  sources  from  which 
these  moderns  drew  their  stories — such  as  the 
15 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

foregleams  from  the  Book  of  Nehemiah,  and 
the  references  to  the  Jews  found  in  the  works  of 
the  historians,  Greek  and  Roman,  who  wrote  the 
records  of  the  ruling  world-powers  of  antiquity. 
These  are  sidelights.  Mahaffy's  Greek  Life  and 
Thought  gathers  these  for  us.  There  are  also 
the  writings  of  Strabo,  and  Philo,  and  Josephus, 
and  Eusebius.  The  Talmud  must  be  mentioned ; 
and  also  the  Mishnah,  and  the  Gemaris,  and  the 
Book  of  Enoch.  The  Exilian  and  Post-exilic 
Psalms  have  a  value  here.  These  are  Psalms  102, 
124,  126,  137.  Also  the  Maccabean  Psalms. 
These  are  Psalms  44,  74,  79.  The  two  Psalms 
74  and  79  reflect  the  horrors  of  the  early  Macca- 
bean times — the  ruin  of  Jerusalem,  the  desecra- 
tion of  the  Temple,  the  setting  up  in  the  Holy 
Places  of  pagan  emblems,  and  the  slaughter  of 
the  faithful.  They  grow  out  of,  and  reflect,  the 
spirit  and  ambitions  and  the  feeling  of  the  Inter- 
biblical  period. 

We  must  not  forget  to  mention  the  Book  of 
Daniel,  which  was  probably  issued  in  its 
present  form  during  this  era.  This  whole 
period  and  more  is  in  that  book  in  graphic 
outline.  True,  it  is  in  the  form  of  prophecy; 
but  prophecy  is  simply  history  written  in 
advance.  This  the  ancient  people  of  God, 
during  this  period,  felt  in  reading  the  Book  of 

16 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

Daniel;  and  they  read  the  book  as  they  made 
the  history  which  it  predicted.  They  got  faith 
and  courage  and  comfort  in  passing  through 
the  tribulations  depicted,  by  dwelling  upon  the 
promised  triumphs  which  were  certain  to  follow. 
The  triumphs  were  foretold  by  Daniel  just  as 
surely  as  were  the  dire  tribulations.  The  glory 
of  the  Kingdom  of  God  was  coming,  and  so 
was  the  world-conquering  Messiah.  Things  were 
going  to  culminate  in  Christ.  The  long  develop- 
ment of  Old  Testament  religion,  with  its  Abra- 
hamic  promise,  its  Mosaic  covenant,  its  Levitical 
sacrifices,  its  Davidic  kingship,  its  prophetic 
hopes,  its  Messianic  ideals,  and  strain  of  Psalm- 
ists, and  redemptive  purpose,  was  going  to  find 
its  fulfilment  and  its  point  of  repose  in  Christ. 
This  is  history  now;  it  was  prophecy  then. 
"Jesus  Christ  clasps  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ments into  one. ' '  All  this  sets  into  the  light  the 
great  value  of  the  Book  of  Daniel.  It  was  one 
of  the  great  books  of  the  Interbiblical  period. 

Doctor  Orr  in  his  late  volume,  The  Problem  of 
the  Old  Testament  (1906),  sets  forth,  I  think,  the 
correct  interpretation  of  the  Book  of  Daniel.  He 
says  that  the  Four  Beasts  of  the  Book  of  Daniel 
(Chap.  7)  symbolize  and  describe  the  four  great 
world-powers  which  the  Jews  touched :  the  Baby- 
lonian, the  Medo-Persian,  the  Grecian,  and  the 
17 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

Roman.  The  seventy  weeks  of  Daniel  (Chap.  9) 
— i.  e.,  the  four  hundred  and  ninety  years  of 
which  these  days  are  symbolical — begin  with  the 
decree  of  Artaxerxes  and  the  mission  of  Ezra, 
458  B.  C,  and  close  with  the  year  39  A.  D., 
the  year  of  Christ's  entrance  on  his  public  minis- 
try. (Orr.  The  Problem  of  the  Old  Testament. 
Ps.  458-537.) 

The  chief  source  of  our  knowledge  of  this 
period  between  the  Testaments  has  yet  to  be  men- 
tioned. It  is  those  writings  which  are  known 
as  the  Old  Testament  Apocrypha.  Some  of  the 
books  contained  in  the  Old  Testament  Apocrypha 
originated  under  the  Persian  ascendency  and 
portray  life  in  exile;  some  were  produced  in 
Palestine  and  give  the  life  and  thought  of  the 
home-country;  and  some  were  written  in  Egypt 
and  show  the  influence  of  Greek  thought  on 
Old  Testament  conclusions.  Many  of  them  give 
pictures  of  the  inner  life  of  the  Jews  during  this 
transitional  stage  of  time.  Some  of  them,  like 
the  First  and  Second  Maccabees,  are  straight- 
forward history  and  give  us  the  great  and  con- 
trolling events  of  Interbiblical  history.  The  Old 
Testament  Apocrypha  will  form  the  subject  of 
a  future  chapter. 

In  giving  the  history  of  the  period  between  the 
Testaments  I  wish  to  set  this  fact  in  the  fore- 
18 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

front,  and  to  keep  it  there — viz:  the  ruling 
world-power  of  that  period  was  the  Greek.  The 
Greek  as  a  world-ruler  postdated  the  Persian, 
and  immediately  antidated  the  Roman.  The 
Greeks  came  into  power  through  the  conquests 
of  Alexander  the  Great,  the  king  of  the  Macedo- 
nians. The  Macedonians  were  not  Greeks  but 
were  of  a  ruder  branch  of  the  same  stock.  The 
royal  family  of  the  Macedonians,  however,  main- 
tained descent  from  the  old  Greek  heroes.  Alex- 
ander himself  had  a  Greek  soul  and  Greek  ambi- 
tions. He  had  the  best  of  Greek  education. 
Aristotle  was  his  master.  He  was  a  champion  of 
Hellenism.  In  the  year  334  B.  C.  young  Alexan- 
der with  a  force  of  thirty-five  thousand  Macedo- 
nians met  the  Persian  army  and  dethroned  Per- 
sia, and  seized  the  scepter  of  the  world.  The  Jews 
were  now  his  subjects;  and  the  empire  of  the 
world  changed  from  the  East  to  the  West. 

Josephus  tells  this  story  of  Alexander:  On 
his  first  visit  through  Palestine,  in  order  to  hon- 
or the  Jews,  he  turned  aside  from  his  march,  for 
the  sole  purpose  of  paying  a  friendly  visit  to 
Jerusalem,  the  Holy  City.  The  high  priest  sol- 
emnly received  him  in  great  pomp;  and  Alex- 
ander in  turn  offered  his  homage  to  Jehovah. 
This  story,  alas,  like  many  of  the  stories  of  Jo- 
sephus, is  pronounced  by  scholars  to  be  a  late 
19 


BETWEEN   THE  TESTAMENTS 

romance  of  the  type  Josephus  was  very  fond  of 
inventing  in  order  to  show  what  honor  the  Jews 
received  from  the  great  kings  of  the  past. 

Having  made  his  famous  conquests,  the  one 
burning  purpose  of  Alexander  was  to  Hellenize 
the  conquered  nations;  and  to  unify  all  by 
making  all  Hellenist  in  spirit  and  in  life.  This 
became  the  ruling  passion  also  of  the  successors 
of  Alexander.  How  was  this  to  be  done  1  Not  by 
the  force  of  arms,  but  by  the  force  of  Greek 
civilization.  This  was  more  potent  than  the  Mace- 
donian spear,  and  more  incisive.  It  was  a  body 
of  ideas.  Now  what  is  more  powerful  than  a 
body  of  ideas?  Edwyn  Bevan  says:  "The 
Greeks  lived  for  the  most  part  in  little  separate 
states,  each  of  which  consisted  only  of  a  city  and 
the  territory  immediately  around  it.  In  these  a 
kind  of  mental  activity,  hitherto  unique  among 
men,  had  been  going  on  for  centuries  before 
Alexander  and  the  result  was  a  body  of  ideas,  a 
way  of  thinking  and  feeling  about  the  world, 
which  could  not  be  paralleled  anywhere  else. 
We  may  call  it  Hellenism.  It  was  embodied  in 
the  language  they  spoke,  in  the  literature  which 
they  were  in  the  process  of  making,  and  in  the 
political  forms  according  to  which  their  socie- 
ties were  organized.' ' 

20 


BETWEEN  THE  TESTAMENTS 

It  was  this  Hellenism  that  Alexander  the  Great 
and  his  successors  counted  on  to  do  what  mili- 
tary arms  could  not  do — viz:  to  win  and  con- 
trol and  mold  and  make  one  the  conquered  na- 
tions of  the  world.  I  tell  you  that  this  Hellen- 
ism was  a  mighty  power,  and  it  has  done  mighty 
things  in  human  history.  Can  the  Hebrews  re- 
sist it?  When  Hellenism  clashes  with  Hebraism, 
which  will  win? 

Our  day  has  felt  Hellenism.  The  ideas  of  the 
Greeks  contained  in  them  many  of  the  germs  of 
which  our  present  Western  civilization  is  the 
development.  Doctor  Quayle  no  later  than  last 
spring  delivered  a  brilliant  address  to  the  Minis- 
ters '  Association  of  Chicago  showing  our  great 
indebtedness  to  the  Greeks.  In  the  conquest 
of  Alexander  the  Great,  the  Jews  are  face  to 
face  with  the  greatest  opposing  power  they  have 
ever  met.     It  is  now  Hellenism  and  Hebraism. 

I  wish  just  here  to  look  at  the  agents  employed 
by  Hellenism  to  propagate  Greek  civilization. 

(a)   There  is  first  its  form  of  civil  government. 

The  city,  as  we  have  seen,  was  the  unit  of 
Greek  civilization.  The  Greeks  were  a  people 
of  cities.  Now  each  city  had  its  council,  which 
was  the  governing  body;  and  this  council  was 
composed  of  members  selected  by  and  from  the 
people.  A  government  of  the  people!  That  is 
21 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

both  popular  and  persuasive.  It  is  bound  to  win 
its  way.    This  was  no  small  item  in  Hellenism. 

(b)  There  is  second  the  Greek  language. 
This  language  was  both  beautiful  and  musical. 

It  had  the  power  to  express.  It  had  the  power 
to  captivate.  This  language  became  universal. 
Now  language  is  a  wonderful  unifying  power. 

(c)  There  is  third  the  provision  made  in 
every  city  for  the  social  life  of  the  people. 

That  which  controls  the  social  life  controls 
the  people.  It  sets  the  fashions  of  the  day  and 
fashion  is  irresistible.  You  might  as  well  be 
out  of  the  world  as  out  of  fashion.  What  did 
Hellenism  provide  for  the  social  life  of  the 
people?  The  stadium,  the  hippodrome,  the  gym- 
nasium, and  the  theater.  You  know  the  influence 
of  national  games  and  amusements.  They  con- 
trol the  young  men,  and  the  young  men  control 
the  nation. 

(d)  There  is  fourth  the  literature  of  the 
Greeks. 

This  is  no  small  item.  Recall  the  names  of 
the  men  who  lead  here  and  you  will  be  con- 
vinced of  this.  One  volume  will  help  you  in 
this.  It  is  entitled  Masterpieces  of  Greek  Liter- 
ature by  John  Henry  Wright,  Professor  of 
Harvard  University.  (1902.)  The  essay  of  Pro- 
fessor Wright  in  the  opening  of  this  book  is 
22 


BETWEEN  THE  TESTAMENTS 

worth  its  weight  in  gold.  Hellenism  gives  the 
world  the  works  of  such  writers  as  these :  Homer, 
Sappho,  Anacreon,  Pindar,  iEschylus,  Sophocles, 
Euripides,  Aristophanes,  Herodotus,  Thucyd- 
ides,  Xenophon,  Plato,  Demosthenes,  Theocri- 
tus. In  this  book  you  will  find  masterpieces 
from  all  of  these.  The  theaters  kept  the  plays 
of  the  great  Greek  composers  constantly  before 
the  people ;  and  these  plays  educated  the  people 
in  the  morals  and  ideals  and  politics  and  relig- 
ion of  Hellenism.  In  those  days  the  theaters 
were  built  to  the  gods,  and  were  next  to  the  Tem- 
ple in  their  sacredness.  They  had  the  power  in 
those  days  equal  to  the  power  of  the  press  and 
pulpit  of  to-day. 

(e)  There  is  fifth  the  schools  of  the  philoso- 
phers. 

These  were  like  the  schools  of  the  prophets  in 
Israel.  The  Greek  philosophers,  like  the  Hebrew 
prophets,  did  the  thinking  for  the  nation  and 
formulated  its  creed.  The  school  of  Socrates 
is  a  famous  illustration.  Socrates,  like  Jesus, 
wrote  nothing;  but  Plato,  his  favorite  pupil 
and  intimate  friend,  wrote  and  gave  immortality 
to  the  teachings  promulgated  in  the  school  of 
Socrates,  and  introduced  into  the  world  the  So- 
cratic  method  of  dealing  with  the  great  problems 
of  life.  You  are  familiar  with  the  teaching  of 
23 


BETWEEN   THE  TESTAMENTS 

Socrates  on  the  doctrine  of  immortality.  He 
struck  the  keynote  of  the  Greek  faith  on  this 
subject;  and  that  note  was  clear  and  strong  in 
favor  of  immortality.  The  fact  is  that  all  the 
Greek  writers,  we  have  mentioned,  are  clear  and 
strong  in  presenting  the  fact  of  immortality. 
They  believed  also  in  the  future  of  the  body ;  and 
to  show  their  regard  for  the  body,  they  provided 
a  golden  urn  to  hold  its  ashes  and  keep  them  safe. 
Concerning  the  influence  of  the  doctrine  of  im- 
mortality as  held  by  the  Greeks,  Dean  Stanley 
writes  in  his  Jewish  Church: 

1 '  The  seed  of  Greek  philosophy  fell  on  the  soil 
of  Hebrew  faith,  and  struck  root  downward  to  a 
depth  from  which  it  has  never  been  eradicated, 
and  bore  fruit  upward  which  has  sustained  the 
moral  life  of  Christendom  to  this  hour."  May 
not  Paul,  the  New  Testament  apostle  of  the  res- 
urrection, who  was  versed  in  the  lore  of  the 
Greeks,  have  been  influenced  by  Hellenism,  in 
the  formation  of  his  creed  and  in  taking  hold 
of  immortality  which  he  makes  Christ  purify  and 
illumine  and  transfigure?  The  doctrine  of  im- 
mortality reached  its  climax  when  Paul  was  able 
to  preach  "Christ  and  the  resurrection-"  "When 
Paul  wanted  a  figure  to  set  forth  the  Christian 
life  he  went  to  the  Greek  gymnasium  for  it ;  and 
when  he  wanted  an  argument  to  convince  the 
24 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

Athenians  relative  to  the  nature  of  the  one  living 
and  true  God  he  went  to  the  Greek  poets  and 
quoted  from  Greek  literature.  You  see  that 
there  is  something  of  Hellenism  in  our  New 
Testament. 

Having  set  into  the  light  the  ruling  world- 
power  during  the  period  between  the  Testa- 
ments, and  having  seen  somewhat  of  the  way  it 
exerted  its  influence,  let  us  now  give  our  thoughts 
wholly  to  the  Jews  and  their  life.  They  were  the 
makers  of  our  religion,  and  it  is  in  them  that  we 
are  especially  interested. 

The  Jews  of  this  period  divide  themselves  into 
two  classes:  1st,  the  Babylonian  Jews;  and  2d, 
the  Palestinian  Jews — i.  e.,  the  Foreign-Jews, 
who  afterward  become  known  as  the  Dispersion; 
and  the  Home-Jews.  During  the  opening  of  this 
period  the  Jews  had  two  centers,  Babylon  and 
Jerusalem.  Now  both  the  Foreign-Jews  and  the 
Home-Jews  were  influential  in  getting  the  world 
ready  for  Christ,  and  in  ushering  in  the  New 
Testament. 

Baron  Hermann  Von  Soden,  D.D.,  professor 
of  theology  in  the  University  of  Berlin,  in  his 
book,  The  History  of  Early  Christian  Literature 
(1906),  points  out  to  his  students  the  Greek 
hand,  in  many  places  holding  the  pen  of  the 
New  Testament.  The  hand  may  be  the  hand  of 
25 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

a  Redactor,  but  it  is  still  a  Greek  hand.  He 
traces  many  of  the  New  Testament  thoughts  to 
the  Classic  City.  He  writes :  "  It  is  by  no  means 
uncommon  to  meet  with  words  and  ideas  derived 
from  Hellenism  which  have  become  fundamental 
conceptions  of  the  Gospel — e.  g.,  the  idea  of 
truth."  Of  the  Gospel  of  Luke  he  writes:  "We 
have  here  conscious  literary  composition  in  sharp 
contrast  to  the  naive  art  of  the  Gospel  of  Mark. 
The  parables  we  owe  Luke  are  the  richest  in 
descriptive  coloring  that  are  preserved  in  the 
Gospel.  He  is  the  poet-painter  among  the 
Evangelists.  The  careful  style  of  his  Gospel 
forces  the  hypothesis  that  it  was  composed  in  the 
environment  of  Greek  culture."  Of  the  Apoc- 
alypse, which  preserves  for  Christianity  its 
heavenward  gaze  and  its  hope  for  future  perfec- 
tion, he  says:  "It  is  pervaded  through  and 
through  with  the  spirit  of  an  Alexandrian  al- 
legorist,  mystic,  and  symbolist."  Of  the  Johan- 
nine  Gospel,  which  climaxes  the  early  Christian 
literature  of  the  New  Testament  writings,  he 
says :  ' '  This  Gospel  met  the  need  of  the  Hellenist 
mind  and  of  all  cognate  minds.  It  is  like  the 
product  of  one  brought  up  in  the  schools.  Its 
declaration  of  the  universalism  of  Christianity 
(John  3:16)  is  Greek.  Its  Prolog  (John  1: 
1-11)  with  its  conception  of  Jesus  as  the  In- 

26 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

carnate  Logos,  and  also  many  a  thought  in  the 
body  of  the  writing,  shows  an  intimate  amal- 
gamation of  the  author's  Christian  belief  with 
elements  of  Alexandrian  philosophy .' '  He  calls 
Paul,  the  mighty  apostle  to  the  Gentiles,  "the 
great  founder  of  Greek  Christendom,"  and 
quoting  his  famous  saying  (Phil.  4:8):  "Fi- 
nally, brethren,  whatsoever  things  are  true, 
whatsoever  things  are  honest,  whatsoever  things 
are  just,  whatsoever  things  are  pure,  whatsoever 
things  are  lovely,  whatsoever  things  are  of  good 
report:  if  there  be  any  virtue,  and  if  there  be 
any  praise,  think  on  these  things,"  he  writes: 
"Nowhere  has  the  born  Jew,  the  rabbi,  ap- 
proached so  closely  to  the  moral  idea  of  the 
Greek  philosopher  as  in  the  conception  of  honor 
and  worth  which  he  here  strings  together.  The 
beautiful  stands  side  by  side  with  the  good  in 
close  fellowship.  It  is  as  if  one  heard  the  ripple 
of  the  waves  at  the  meeting  of  the  two  streams 
which  have  their  source  in  Zion  and  the  Par- 
thenon." 

Let  us  first  take  up  the  Foreign-Jews  and  see 
if  this  be  not  so.  I  can  now  treat  only  of  the 
Foreign- Jews ;  in  the  next  chapter,  I  will  take 
up  the  story  of  the  Palestinian  Jews. 

The  Foreign-Jews  were  not  an  inconsiderable 
element.    They  were  greater  in  number  than  the 
27 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

Home-Jews.  They  were  richer  and  more  conse- 
quential. The  return  from  the  Exile  was  only  a 
partial  thing.  The  vast  number  of  Jews  were  com- 
fortable and  prosperous  abroad,  and  because 
they  were  so  they  remained  abroad.  But  God 
saw  to  it  that  the  family  of  the  tribe  of  Judah, 
in  which  the  Christ  was  to  be  born,  returned. 
That  was  the  main  thing.  God  had  a  mission  in 
the  home-land  for  that  family ;  and  God,  too,  had 
a  mission  abroad  for  the  great  host  of  families 
who  remained  abroad. 

People  have  a  wrong  idea  here  about  ancient 
captivities,  and  the  policy  of  extensive  deporta- 
tions of  the  conquered  people.  No  cruelty  was 
intended.  It  was  a  political  policy  to  promote 
the  amalgamation  of  the  conquered  with  the  na- 
tion of  the  conquerors.  Often  the  lands  to 
which  they  were  deported  were  better  than  the 
land  they  left  behind;  and  grander  opportuni- 
ties for  a  grander  and  broader  life  were  opened 
to  them.  There  were  open  doors  into  brilliant 
courts,  and  into  the  schools,  and  into  the  high 
places  of  commerce.  The  second  generation  of 
the  deported  were  often  the  nabobs  of  the  land. 
This  is  what  seventy  years  of  the  Jews  in  Baby- 
lonia prove.  The  majority  of  them  were  so 
well  fixt  that  when  the  decree  permitting  the 
return  came  they  wanted  to  stay  where  they  were, 
28 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

and  they  did  stay.  But  in  doing  so  they  did  not 
lose  all  interest  in  the  home-land,  nor  in  their 
religion;  not  at  all.  To  them  Jerusalem,  with 
its  unique  worship  of  Jehovah,  was  ever  the 
Holy  City;  and  they  often  came  to  its  solemn 
feasts.  It  was  their  ideal  rallying  point.  They 
considered  it  a  privilege  to  worship  in  the  Temple 
of  the  Lord.  They  sent  large  gifts  to  the  Temple 
treasury;  and  much  of  their  money  found  its 
way  to  Jerusalem.  Sometimes  the  reforms  of 
the  home-land  were  planned  in  Babylon,  and  the 
reformers  to  carry  them  out  came  from  there 
also.  They  came  even  from  the  court  and  royal 
household.  You  see  this  in  the  book  of  Nehe- 
miah.  The  reformer  and  organizer  here  was  an 
Eastern  Jew.  History  tells  us  that  Jerusalem 
had  even  high  priests  who  came  from  the  For- 
eign-Jews. One  came  from  Babylon,  and  an- 
other belonged  to  an  Alexandrian  family. 

Let  us  not  suppose  that  the  Foreign-Jews 
forever  made  Babylon  their  sole  center,  for  they 
did  not.  The  Greek  rule  and  the  Greek  language 
opened  all  cities  to  them;  and  the  benefits  and 
opportunities,  and  the  enticements  of  trade, 
invited  them  to  enter  all  cities,  which  they  did. 
The  Jews  became  cosmopolitan.  No  people  be- 
came more  so.  Philo  tells  us  that  there  were 
a  million  of  Jews  at  one  time  in  the  city  of  Alex- 

29 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

andria,  and  they  were  all  Greek-speaking  Jews; 
and  they  all  for  the  most  part  kept  their  religion, 
and  loved  Jerusalem  as  the  Holy  City.  This 
voluntary  dispersion  of  the  Jews  explains  the 
record  of  the  day  of  Pentecost  in  the  second  chap- 
ter of  the  Acts,  "And  they  were  all  amazed 
and  marveled,  saying  one  to  another,  Behold  are 
not  all  these  which  speak  Galileans?  And  how 
hear  we  every  man  in  his  own  tongue  wherein 
we  were  born  ?  Parthians  and  Medes  and  Elam- 
ites  and  the  dwellers  in  Mesopotamia,  and  in 
Judea,  and  Cappadocia,  in  Pontus  and  Asia, 
Phrygia  and  Pamphylia,  in  Egypt,  and  in  the 
parts  of  Lybia  about  Cyrene,  and  strangers  of 
Rome,  Jews  and  Proselytes,  Cretes  and  Arabi- 
ans; we  do  hear  them  speak  in  our  tongues  the 
wonderful  works  of  God." 

But  how  did  these  Foreign- Jews  keep  up  their 
religion?  How  did  Hebraism  in  these  widely 
scattered  communities  manage  to  hold  its  own 
against  Hellenism,  so  that  there  were  the  tribes 
from  all  lands  loyal  enough  to  be  present  at 
Jerusalem  on  the  great  Day  of  Pentecost? 

I  answer,  in  two  ways:  1st,  by  means  of  the 
Synagog;  and  2d,  by  means  of  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures. 

The  Synagog  was  the  creation  of  a  necessity — 
viz :  the  necessity  of  the  Foreign- Jews  for  Holy 
30 


BETWEEN  THE   TESTAMENTS 


fellowship;  "As  iron  shapeneth  iron,  so  does  the 
countenance  of  a  man  his  fellow.''  The  truth 
of  this  proverb  the  Synagog  proved  to  the  Jews 
in  foreign  lands,— Jew  kept  Jew  a  Monotheist 
in  the  midst  of  Polytheism;  and  Jew  taught 
Jew  the  Law  of  God,  and  the  worship  of  God. 
Josephus  tells  us  that  "the  Jew  knew  the  Law 
better  than  he  knew  his  own  name."  In  their 
Synagogs,  which  they  built  in  every  city  of  every 
land,  these  Foreign-Jews  came  together  to  con- 
fer, to  argue,  and  to  teach  their  faith  to  their 
children,  that  all  might  know  that  wisdom  which 
begins  in  the  fear  of  the  One  Living  and  True 
God.  They  searched  out  the  Old  Writings,  and 
cherished  and  studied  them.  They  received  com- 
munications from  Jerusalem,  the  mother  of  them 
all.  They  edited  anew  with  many  comments  the 
words  of  their  prophets,  and  historians,  and 
poets.  They  wrote  new  settings  of  their  won- 
drous past,  which  ever  became  more  wondrous 
and  glorious.  They  composed  new  enlargements 
of  their  divine  doctrines,  and  new  books  of 
Psalms,  and  richer  volumes  of  wisdom,  and  cun- 
ning expositions.  They  dreamed  new  apoca- 
lypses concerning  the  way  in  which  God  would 
bring  right  to  pass  in  the  days  to  come.  Here  in 
the  Synagog  they  argued  themselves  away  from 
Hellenism  into  a  deeper  and  fuller  Hebraism  and 

31 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

were  made  true  and  strong.  We  even  have  some 
of  the  results  of  the  Synagog  life.  I  refer  to 
the  fragments  which  Eusebius  gives  us  from  the 
work  of  Aristobulus.  Aristobulus  lived  in  Al- 
exandria two  centuries  before  Christ.  It  was 
his  fond  occupation  to  translate  and  combine  Old 
Testament  teachings  with  Greek  philosophical 
systems;  so  as  to  show  that  the  Old  Testament 
Scriptures,  when  interpreted  allegorically,  had 
in  them  all  the  germs  that  were  best  in  Greek 
philosophy. 

The  other  great  power  that  kept  the  Jews  of 
the  Dispersion  true  and  active  was  the  Old  Tes- 
tament Book  of  God.  Because  the  Foreign-Jews 
everywhere  spoke  the  Greek — which  was  then  the 
world-language — the  Old  Testament  Book  of  God 
was  translated  into  the  Greek,  and  put  into  the 
hands  of  the  people.  It  was  an  added  power  to 
the  Synagog.  This  version  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment is  known  as  the  Septuagint  or  the  Seventy. 
It  was  Christ's  Bible;  and  also  that  of  the  Apos- 
tles, and  of  the  Gentile  Christians.  The  119th 
Psalm  tells  you  what  the  Word  of  God  is  and 
does.  The  truthfulness  of  the  119th  Psalm  was 
verified  by  the  gift  of  the  Septuagint  to  the  Jews 
of  the  Dispersion.  It  enlightened  their  eyes; 
it  sanctified  their  hearts ;  and  it  made  their  lives 
according  to  the  mind  of  the  God  of  Israel. 

32 


\ 


BETWEEN  THE  TESTAMENTS 

The  tradition  concerning  the  origin  and  source 
of  the  Septuagint  comes  to  us  through  the  epistle 
or  letter  of  Aristeas.  It  grew  out  of  the  literary 
spirit  of  the  age,  when  Ptolemy  Philadelphus,  the 
broad-minded,  the  most  distinguished  of  the 
Ptolemies,  was  ruler  of  Egypt.  He  was  the 
Ptolemy  who  founded  and  developed  the  great 
and  world-known  Library  of  Alexandria.  Into 
this  library  he  gathered  all  the  notable  and  pro- 
curable works  of  the  ages.  He  had  these  copied 
at  his  own  expense.  One  day  his  librarian,  De- 
metrius Phalereus,  came  to  him  and  suggested 
that  he  have  the  Sacred  Writings  of  the  Jews 
translated  into  Greek,  and  placed  in  the  library. 
These  he  assured  him  were  marvelous  products, 
and  would  enrich  the  library  beyond  compare. 
Acting  on  the  suggestion  of  his  librarian,  Ptol- 
emy Philadelphus  sent  to  Jerusalem  and  request- 
ed the  high  priest  to  send  him  six  picked  schol- 
ars from  each  of  the  Twelve  Tribes  to  do  the 
work  required.  He  sent  also  gifts  of  gold  and 
silver  and  precious  stones,  and  promised  trans- 
portation and  large  remuneration  for  the  schol- 
ars. Seventy-two  of  the  finest  of  the  Hebrew 
scholars  came  to  Alexandria  in  response  to  this 
request.  They  were  entertained  royally,  and  did 
their  work  well.  They  translated  the  books 
of  Moses,  which  were  the  nucleus  of  the  Septua- 
33 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

gint,  and  thus  gave  the  "Word  of  God  a  new  and 
world-wide  outlet.  These  seventy  men  did  their 
work  in  seventy  days;  hence  the  Greek  transla- 
tion was  called  the  Seventy.  It  is  known  by  that 
name  to  this  day. 

There  is  a  striking  addition  to  this  story,  which 
gives  luster  to  the  Septuagint.  It  is  this:  Ptol- 
emy Philadelphus,  in  order  to  satisfy  himself  as 
to  the  accuracy  of  the  work  of  these  learned 
men,  assigned  each  man  a  separate  cell  where 
each  made  a  separate  translation  of  the  Sacred 
Books  of  the  Hebrews.  When  the  seventy  days 
were  accomplished,  the  seventy  translators 
brought  their  works  to  the  library  for  examina- 
tion and  approval.  It  was  found  after  rigid 
search  and  review  that  all  of  the  translations 
were  precisely  the  same.  There  was  not  a  single 
deviation,  not  even  of  a  single  letter.  This  sat- 
isfied Ptolemy  Philadelphus  that  he  had  a  work 
for  his  library  equivalent  to  the  divine  original. 
He  sent  the  scholars  back  to  Jerusalem  crowned 
with  honor,  and  ladened  with  rewards. 

Is  this  story  true  ?  Here  is  the  book,  and  here 
is  the  name  of  the  book.  The  fathers  like  Jerome 
told  it  as  true.  Notwithstanding,  the  cruel  crit- 
ics of  our  day  deny  its  credence,  and  pronounce 
it  a  fiction.  They  say  it  was  invented  by  some 
Jewish  enthusiast  for  the  purpose  of  embellish- 
34 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

ment,  and  to  satisfy  Hebrew  pride.  True  or 
untrue,  it  is  certainly  a  good  story,  and  has  a 
thrill  in  it.  It  is  calculated  to  make  the  Septua- 
gint  go.  The  fact  is,  people  like  just  such  a 
story ;  and  the  more  marvelous  it  is  the  better — 
i.  e.,  the  more  readily  is  it  accepted  and  believed 
and  told  and  boasted  about.  For  example,  what 
would  the  Nativity  be  without  those  bewitching 
stories  which  center  around  the  cradle  manger 
of  Bethlehem  ? — the  stories  about  the  Star  in  the 
East,  and  the  coming  of  the  Magii,  and  the  flash- 
ing of  the  Glory-light,  and  the  Song  of  the 
Angels,  and  the  Nunc  Demittus  of  Simeon,  and 
the  Magnificat  of  the  Holy  Mother !  If  the  crit- 
ics should  ever  rob  us  of  these,  they  would  re- 
duce the  Nativity  to  the  merest  commonplace  oc- 
currence and  rob  Bethlehem  of  much  of  its 
power. 

For  centuries  men  believed  the  wonderful 
story  told  relative  to  the  origin  of  the  Septua- 
gint,  because  the  Septuagint  was  able  comfort- 
ably to  carry  just  such  a  story ;  and  because  the 
story  satisfied  the  law  of  harmony  and  fitness. 

This  story  is  something  like  the  story  told  of 
the  Apostles'  Creed,  which  is  the  creed  of  all 
Christendom.  To  begin  with,  the  creed  bears 
the  apostles'  names.  It  is  called  the  Apostles' 
Creed.    I  find  it  printed  in  my  copy  of  the  New 

35 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

Testament  Apocrypha;  and  this  story,  affirmed 
by  Ambrose,  accompanies  it:  The  twelve  apos- 
tles as  skilful  artificers  assembled  together  and 
made  by  their  common  advice  this  creed,  by 
which  the  darkness  of  the  devil  is  disclosed  that 
the  light  of  Christ  may  appear.  Each  apostle 
inserted  an  article;  so  that  the  creed  is  divided 
into  twelve  parts.  The  apostles,  beginning  with 
Peter,  contributed  as  follows: 

Peter — "I  believe  in  God  the  Father  Almighty, 

John — "  Maker  of  heaven  and  earth, 

James — "And  in  Jesus  Christ  his  only  Son  our 

Lord, 
Andrew — "Who    was    conceived   by    the    Holy 

Ghost,  born  of  the  Virgin  Mary, 
Phillip — "Suffered  under  Pontius  Pilate,   was 

crucified,  dead  and  buried, 
Thomas — "He    descended    into    hell,    and    the 

third  day  he  rose  again  from  the  dead; 
Bartholomew — "He  ascended  into  heaven,  and 

sitteth    at   the   right   hand   of    God   the 

Father  Almighty. 
Matthew — "From    thence    shall    He    come    to 

judge  the  quick  and  the  dead; 
James,  the  son  of  Alpheus — "I  believe  in  the 

Holy  Ghost,  the  Holy  Catholic  Church, 

36 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

Simon  Zelotes — "The  communion  of  the  saints, 

the  forgiveness  of  sins, 
Jude,  the  brother  of  James — "The  resurrection 

of  the  body, 
Matthias — "And  the  life  everlasting.     Amen." 

Notwithstanding  the  critics  date  this  instru- 
ment as  a  document  of  the  fourth  century, 
A.  D.,  you  can  see  what  interest  this  story  of 
the  construction  of  the  Apostles'  Creed  gives  to 
that  creed.  It  makes  it  nothing  short  of  a  divine 
romance. 

Men  have  ever  given  themselves  to  the  work 
of  weaving  around  great  events  and  works  the 
charm  and  the  hypnotism  of  romance;  and  this 
has  added  a  new  power  to  the  native  greatness 
of  these  events  and  works.  Men  will  ever  con- 
tinue to  do  this.  Human  nature  likes  it.  This 
has  led  one  of  our  late  scholars  to  go  so  far  as  to 
say:  "A  myth  is  better  than  a  history  by  which 
to  reveal  divine  things." 

Concerning  the  story  that  has  got  itself  told 
about  the  Septuagint,  the  Greek  Version  of  the 
Old  Testament  Bible,  we  have  this  to  say:  True 
or  untrue,  quoted  by  the  Christian  fathers  or 
repudiated  by  the  Christian  fathers,  the  book 
does  not  need  it.  The  Septuagint  is  great  with- 
out it.    Its  greatness  is  constitutional  and  inher- 

37 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

ent.  It  was  the  power  of  God  among  the  Jews 
of  the  Dispersion,  because  it  could  not  help  be- 
ing such.  It  was  the  power  of  God,  because  it 
was  of  God.  Such  was  its  effect  upon  the  Greek- 
speaking  Hebrews,  that  it  fitted  them  to  pre- 
pare the  nations  in  which  their  lot  was  cast  for 
the  coming  of  the  Christ ;  and  the  coming  of  the 
missionaries  of  the  Cross  of  Christ.  Because  of 
it,  there  were  Wise  Men  in  the  East  ready  to 
start  with  their  gifts  to  the  cradle  of  Bethle- 
hem the  moment  Jesus  was  born;  and  because 
of  it,  there  were  open  doors  into  every  nation 
for  the  incoming  of  the  gospel.  It  made  the 
Foreign-Jews  missionaries  of  the  Old  Testament, 
and  these  Old  Testament  missionaries  prepared 
mankind  for  the  New  Testament  missionaries 
who  came  after.  In  other  words,  the  Old  Testa- 
ment in  Greek,  prepared  the  world  for  the  New 
Testament  in  Greek.  If  there  had  never  been  a 
Greek  Old  Testament,  there  would  never  have 
been  a  Greek  New  Testament.  The  Greek  Old 
Testament  was  the  forerunner  of  the  Greek 
New  Testament. 

This  part  of  our  study  of  the  period  between 
the  Testaments  reveals  to  us  the  wide  over-rule 
of  God  in  the  universe  in  the  interest  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God  on  earth.  It  exalts  the  Provi- 
dential Hand.    It  centers  history  in  Jesus  Christ. 

38 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

He  is  the  center  of  the  Book  of  God.  He  is  the 
center  of  the  reign  of  God.  He  enthrones  Him- 
self in  Hebraism  and  He  enthrones  Himself  just 
as  surely  in  Hellenism.  If  we  take  simply  the 
matter  of  language,  as  an  illustration,  we  see 
this.  He  was  in  the  midst  of  Hellenism  con- 
structing the  Greek  language,  making  it  beauti- 
ful and  perfect — a  complete  vehicle  for  expres- 
sion. When  He  had  completed  this  work,  then 
He  Himself  came  to  the  world,  the  Son  of  God 
incarnate,  the  perfect  revelation  of  the  All 
Father  of  whom  Homer,  the  king  of  Greek  lit- 
erature, speaks ;  and  He  gave  this  perfect  revela- 
tion of  the  Divine  to  this  perfect  language, 
that  in  the  form  of  the  Greek  New  Testament 
it  might  be  carried  to  all  the  kingdoms  and  na- 
tions of  the  world,  so  that  men  everywhere  might 
know  the  true  God  and  be  saved. 

Between  the  Testaments,  there  was  a  divine 
power  at  work  conserving  and  utilizing  the  Old, 
and  shaping  the  instruments  and  gathering  the 
materials  for  the  construction  of  the  New,  that 
both  Testaments  might  bless  the  world. 


39 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 


POSTLUDE 

Professor  Mahaffy  of  Dublin  University  writes 
of  the  Jews  during  this  period : 

* '  It  is  true  that  the  Jews  occupied  but  a  small 
territory  in  southern  Syria,  encompassed  by 
many  Greek  cities.  But  just  as  the  strength  of 
the  Greeks  lay,  not  in  their  decaying  peninsula, 
but  in  their  diaspora — their  settlements  all  over 
the  world — so  the  Jews  were  a  ubiquitous  nation, 
imbued  at  the  same  time  with  a  strong  affection 
for  the  one  spiritual  center  of  the  race  at  Jeru- 
salem. This  gave  them  unity  and  power,  which 
the  Greeks  did  not  possess.  Philo,  composing  a 
very  rhetorical  letter  as  the  missive  sent  by 
King  Agrippa  to  Caligula,  speaks  of  the 
spreading  of  the  Jews  as  follows: 

"  'This  sacred  city,  the  Holy  Jerusalem,  is 
the  metropolis,  not  only  of  the  one  country 
Judea,  but  of  most  lands,  by  reason  of  the  set- 
tlements she  has  sent  out  from  time  to  time  to 
the  bordering  lands  of  Egypt,  Phenicia,  and 
the  rest  of  Syria;  also  into  the  more  remote 
Pamphylia,  Cilicia,  most  of  Asia  as  far  as  the 
recesses  of  Pontus;  likewise  to  Europe,  Thes- 
saly,  Bceotia,  Macedonia,  iEtolia,  Attica,  Argos, 
Corinth,  as  well  as  most  and  the  best  parts  of 
40 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

the  Peloponnese.  And  not  only  are  the  conti- 
nents full  of  Jewish  settlements,  but  so  are 
the  most  famous  of  the  islands, — Euboea, 
Cyprus,  Crete.  I  omit  the  lands  beyond  the 
Euphrates;  for  very  nearly  all  Babylon,  and 
whatever  other  satrapies  have  good  land,  have 
Jewish  settlers.  If,  therefore,  my  fatherland 
obtain  from  you  benefits,  not  one  city,  but  tens 
of  thousands  are  put  under  obligation,  which  are 
settled  over  every  latitude  of  the  habitable 
world — in  Europe,  Asia,  Libya,  in  continents, 
islands,  on  seacoasts  and  far  inland,'  " 


41 


CHAPTER  II 

The  Jews  of  the  Home-land  During  the  Period  Between 
the  Testaments 


CHAPTER  II 

The  Jews  of  the  Home-land 
During  the  Period  Between  the 
Testaments. 


I 


n  a  prior  chapter  we  ascertained  the  im- 
portance of  the  period  of  history  be- 
tween the  Testaments.  It  is  looked 
upon  by  the  great  populace  of  Christen- 
dom as  a  blank;  an  interval  of  dark  shadows 
between  the  sunlit  regions  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment and  the  New.  We  found  it  to  be  a  period 
of  great  worth  in  the  development  of  the  Jewish 
religion.  It  got  the  world  ready  for  the  Gospel 
of  the  Messiah.  We  saw  the  throne  of  the 
world's  empire  change  from  the  Orient  to  the  Oc- 
cident, and  the  Greek  displace  the  Persian  as 
the  ruler  of  nations.  This  period  was  the  period 
of  Greek  supremacy.  The  aim  of  Greek  civiliza- 
tion was  to  assimilate  mankind;  and  the  agents 
which  it  employed  were  the  stadium,  the  hippo- 
drome, the  gymnasium,  the  theater,  and  the 
schools  of  philosophy  and  art  and  architecture. 
Hellenism  was  the  force  which  it  used ;  and  Hel- 
lenism is  a  great  body  of  masterful  ideas. 
We  followed  the  story  of  the  Babylonian  Jews 

45 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

and  the  Jews  of  the  Dispersion,  and  saw  how 
Hebraism  held  its  own  in  foreign  lands  against 
Hellenism  and  prepared  the  nations  for  the 
coming  of  Christ,  the  great  Hebrew,  the  hero  of 
the  New  Testament,  the  predestined  and  univer- 
sal and  final  conqueror  and  ruler  of  the  world. 
Jesus  Christ  is  the  finality  of  all  history. 

We  ascertained  the  power  of  the  Jewish  Syna- 
gog,  and  the  influence  of  the  Septuagint,  the 
Greek  translation  of  the  Old  Testament.  These 
were  the  agents  of  Hebraism  among  the  Disper- 
sion, and  they  enabled  the  Foreign-Jews  grandly 
to  work  out  their  mission  in  human  history.  All 
this  is  complete  so  far  as  it  goes,  and  closes  the 
first  chapter  of  the  period  between  the  Testa- 
ments. 

We  now  open  the  second  chapter  of  this 
period.  We  leave  the  consideration  of  those 
Jews  who  made  their  home  in  the  nations  abroad 
and  study  the  story  of  the  Palestinian  Jews — 
the  Jews  of  the  home-land. 

Only  a  handful  of  Jews  returned  from  the 
Babylonian  captivity,  and  it  is  with  these  that 
we  have  to  deal.  When  they  returned  to  the 
Land  of  the  Covenant,  they  centered  around 
Jerusalem,  the  Holy  City,  and  began  at  once 
to  rebuild  the  Temple  and  the  city.  They  were 
religious  enthusiasts,  and  the  work  of  God  pros- 
46 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

pered  in  their  hands.  Do  not  let  ns  forget  that 
their  number  was  small,  and  that  their  territory 
was  small.  Their  territory  had  not  the  exten- 
sion it  had  in  Christ's  day.  It  was  only  a  little 
section  about  Jerusalem  with  a  radius  of  not 
more  than  ten  or  twelve  miles.  If  we  had  gone, 
for  example,  through  Galilee,  in  the  fifth  century 
before  Christ,  we  would  have  seen  in  those  sacred 
places  familiar  to  us — Nazareth,  Cana,  Beth- 
saida,  Capernaum — only  heathen.  Yet  when 
Christ  came,  it  was  Galilee  that  gave  him  the 
majority  of  his  apostles.  The  Palestinian  Jews 
must  have  done  something  grand  during  the 
period  between  the  Testaments  to  make  this  pos- 
sible. As  for  the  other  section  of  Palestine — 
Samaria — it  was  a  hindrance,  and  not  a  help ;  a 
jealous  rival,  and  not  a  friend  of  the  Jews  of 
Jerusalem.  An  alliance  with  the  Samaritans  was 
considered  a  snare.  The  Book  of  Nehemiah 
brings  this  out.  When  Nehemiah  came  from  the 
royal  household  of  Babylon  to  Jerusalem  as  a 
reformer,  he  says  that  he  found  that  a  son  of 
the  high  priest  had  married  a  daughter  of  the 
Samaritan  magnate  Sanballat.  What  did  Nehe- 
miah as  a  reformer  do?  Listen!  "Therefore  I 
chased  him  from  me."  That  widened  the  breach 
between  the  Jews  and  Samaritans.  This  offend- 
ing and  ostracized  priest  went  to  Samaria  to 

47 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

live;  and  there  lie  organized  the  Samaritan  re- 
ligion, and  built  a  temple  as  a  center  for  wor- 
ship on  the  Mountain  of  Gerizim.  The  two  tem- 
ples, the  temple  of  Jerusalem  and  the  temple  of 
Mt.  Gerizim,  from  that  day  to  the  day  that  the 
Master  went  through  Samaria  and  talked  at  the 
well  of  Jacob  with  the  woman  of  Samaria,  were 
bitter  rivals.  The  words  of  the  Samaritan  woman 
to  Jesus  set  this  into  the  light:  "Our  fathers 
worshiped  in  this  mountain,  but  ye  say  that  in 
Jerusalem  is  the  place  where  men  ought  to  wor- 
ship.' '  The  center  of  worship  was  the  bone  of 
contention  between  them.  The  people  wondered 
that  Jesus  talked  with  the  woman,  because  "the 
Jews  have  no  dealings  with  the  Samaritans. ' ' 

There  is  no  hope  of  help  anywhere  for  the  re- 
turned Jews  who  take  up  life  anew  at  Jerusa- 
lem. They  must  be  self-reliant  and  self-suffi- 
cient in  building  the  Holy  City  and  in  taking 
the  land  for  God. 

In  the  study  of  the  history  of  the  Palestinian 
Jews  during  the  period  between  the  Testaments, 
it  will  aid  us  if  we  divide  the  period  into  two 
parts:  1st,  the  Pre-Maccabean  years;  and  2d, 
the  Maccabean  and  Post-Maccabean  years. 

The  Pre-Maccabean  years  run  from  Nehe- 
miah  445  B.  C.  to  the  time  of  the  Greek  king  of 
Syria,  Antiochus  Epiphanes,  two  hundred  and 
48 


BETWEEN   THE  TESTAMENTS 

seventy  years  later.  There  is  a  great  dearth  of 
historic  material  here.  Even  Herodotus,  who 
tells  all  about  the  surrounding  peoples,  says 
nothing  about  the  Jews  whom  these  people  sur- 
round. He  does  not  even  mention  the  Jews.  All 
we  can  do  is  to  follow  the  great  world-move- 
ments of  these  years,  in  which  the  Jews  were  in- 
volved alike  with  hundreds  of  other  peoples  and 
races,  and  then  conclude  for  ourselves  as  to  re- 
sults. At  most  there  are  only  two  outside  helps 
here;  and  these  are  Josephus  and  the  writers  of 
the  Old  Testament  Apocrypha. 

To  start  with,  we  must  note  that  there  is  a 
change  in  the  administering  of  government  in 
Jerusalem.  Formerly  a  king  of  the  house  of 
David  was  the  ruling  power ;  now  the  high  priest 
is  the  ruling  power.  The  House  of  David  has 
disappeared  from  sight;  the  Jewish  state  has 
only  one  chief — viz:  the  hereditary  high  priest. 
His  is  the  royal  family.  The  life  of  the  people 
from  this  time  on,  until  the  time  of  the  Macca- 
bees, was  ecclesiastical  rather  than  political.  The 
priests  ruled  by  the  Law  of  Moses.  From  the 
times  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  the  Law  was  pub- 
licly read  to  the  people.  This  was  an  effective 
policy.  This  formed  public  opinion.  The  priests 
held  the  people  to  the  Law,  and  the  people  held 
the  priests  to  the  Law.  This  was  a  step  toward 
49 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

democracy.  It  made  Law  king ;  and  under  King 
Law  it  made  both  priests  and  people  guardians 
of  all  rights  defined  by  the  Law.  It  gave  the 
people  a  voice  as  well  as  the  priests.  What  is 
this  but  a  tendency  toward  democracy? 

There  was  something  of  Hellenism  in  this. 
Among  the  Greeks  the  people  had  a  voice  in  the 
government.  The  Greek  unit  of  government 
was  the  city,  and  in  each  city  there  was  a  senate 
composed  of  the  leading  citizens  chosen  from 
the  people.  Each  city  was  autonomous,  with 
jurisdiction  over  the  surrounding  district.  Jeru- 
salem, which  was  under  the  Greek  supremacy, 
caught  the  Greek  spirit ;  and  the  training  of  the 
people  under  the  public  reading  of  the  Law  was 
in  harmony  with  the  Greek  spirit.  Soon  Jeru- 
salem had  a  senate,  known  afterward  as  the 
Sanhedrin,  and  it  took  its  place  as  one  of  the 
leading  cities  of  the  world.  We  have  gained  a 
point  here.  We  have  learned  the  origin  of  the 
Jewish  Sanhedrin. 

We  have  just  said  that  the  Jewish  people  were 
under  the  Greek  supremacy.  The  Greeks  ruled 
the  world.  It  is  natural  now  to  ask,  How  did  the 
supremacy  conduct  itself  toward  the  dependen- 
cies ?  This  is  the  answer  to  that  question :  The 
petty  states  were  allowed  to  manage  their 
own  affairs  in  their  own  way,  if  only  they  were 

SO 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

prompt  in  paying  the  tribute  levied  upon  them 
by  the  king's  representatives.  This  tribute  was 
farmed  out  to  the  highest  bidders,  who  collect- 
ed it  from  the  states,  and  who  were  held  re- 
sponsible for  it  by  the  reigning  court.  Here  is 
where  the  oppression  came  in.  The  oppressors 
were  the  men  to  whom  the  court  farmed  out  the 
tribute,  and  who  collected  it  from  the  people. 
There  were  graft  and  political  corruption  back 
there  in  the  period  between  the  Testaments. 

There  was  another  source  of  trouble  in  those 
Pre-Maccabean  days.  As  the  petty  states  were 
allowed  to  do  pretty  much  as  they  pleased,  so 
long  as  their  tribute  was  paid,  they  often  pleased 
to  go  to  war  with  one  another  and  to  oppress  one 
another.  Hence  Jerusalem  often  suffered  from 
attacks  by  surrounding  tribal  states. 

If  we  follow  now  for  a  little  the  history  of 
the  Greek  supremacy,  we  shall  get  further  light 
on  the  story  of  the  Palestinian  Jews  of  the  period 
between  the  Testaments. 

When  Alexander  the  Great  died,  he  died  with- 
out leaving  a  capable  heir  to  take  his  throne. 
There  were  many  aspirants.  After  a  tangle  of 
wars,  and  half  a  century  of  revolutions,  the  con- 
test for  supremacy  narrowed  itself  to  two  houses, 
each  of  which  received  about  half  of  Alexander's 
kingdom.  These  houses  were  the  house  of  Ptol- 
51 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

emy  of  Egypt  with  Alexandria  as  its  capital; 
and  the  house  of  Seleucid,  or  Antiochus  of  Asia, 
with  Antioeh  of  Syria  as  its  extreme  western 
capital.     It  had  other  capitals  in  the  Orient. 

The  geographical  position  of  Palestine  on  the 
highway  of  commerce  and  travel  between  the 
Orient  and  the  Occident  made  it  the  desire  of 
both  houses,  and  provoked  an  endless  series  of 
devastating  and  depressing  wars.  It  took  a 
brave  people  to  live  through  these  times  coura- 
geously, and  keep  a  loyal  faith  in  God.  Backward 
and  forward  came  the  armies  of  these  two  Greek 
nations,  from  Egypt  and  from  Asia,  and  often 
they  met  in  the  shock  of  battle  right  in  the  heart 
of  Palestine.  The  House  of  Ptolemy  after  gen- 
erations of  warfare  won  something  like  a  per- 
manent supremacy,  and  for  one  hundred  years 
Jerusalem  was  subject  to  the  Egyptian  Greeks. 
After  a  century  the  House  of  Seleucid  won,  and 
then  Jerusalem  was  subject  to  that  house.  The 
one  hundred  years  of  subjection  to  the  House  of 
Ptolemy  brings  us  through  the  Pre-Maccabean 
times  up  to  the  Maccabean  times.  It  was  during 
Israel's  subjection  to  the  House  of  Seleucid  that 
the  Maccabees  asserted  themselves.  But  of  this 
afterward. 

We  are  now  interested  in  the  Jews  under  the 
House  of  Ptolemy.    What  was  the  condition  of 

52 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

the  Covenant  People  of  God  during  this  latter 
part  of  the  period  of  the  Pre-Maccabean  era?  It 
was  both  bad  and  good.  Notice  the  bad!  The 
priests  under  the  rule  of  the  Law  gathered  tithes 
from  the  people;  and  as  these  tithes  grew,  the 
priests  became  exceedingly  rich.  With  riches 
came  worldliness  and  a  desire  for  lordship.  This 
is  almost  always  the  case.  They  formed  an  aris- 
tocracy in  Jerusalem.  As  the  brilliant  court  of 
Ptolemy  in  Egypt  always  had  open  doors  for 
bright  and  promising  young  men,  many  of  the 
young  Hebrews  availed  themselves  of  the  golden 
and  attractive  opportunity  and  were  found  in 
the  royal  palace  at  Alexandria.  We  know  how 
fascinating  the  enjoyment  of  royal  honors  is. 
Some  of  the  chief  families  of  Judea  were  cor- 
rupted, and  were  not  more  than  half  loyal  to 
their  own  nation.  If  there  be  such  a  thing  as 
half -treason  they  were  guilty  of  that. 

The  craze  for  recognition  struck  even  the  fam- 
ily of  the  reigning  priesthood.  This  was  espe- 
cially the  case  with  one  called  Joseph,  the  son 
of  Tobiah.  Josephus,  who  was  fond  of  telling 
stories  of  the  way  Jews  hobnobbed  with  kings, 
gives  us  the  story  of  this  Joseph : 

"The  high  priest  of  those  days,"  the  story 
opens,  "was  a  man  whose  one  real  concern  was 
money.      According  to  the  practise  of  the  realm, 

53 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

the  tribute  of  the  Jewish  state  to  the  Egyptian 
government  was  paid  in  a  lump  sum  of  twenty 
silver  talents  annually  by  the  high  priest.  Un- 
der the  reign  of  this  high  priest,  the  payment  fell 
into  arrears.  The  Ptolemaic  court  threatened  to 
turn  Jerusalem  into  a  military  colony,  but  the 
high  priest  did  not  much  care  what  happened  to 
Jerusalem  or  the  Jews,  so  long  as  he  might  keep 
his  money.  Of  course  the  description  of  this  vil- 
lainous old  man  leads  up  to  the  hero  of  the  story. 
He  is  the  son  of  the  high  priest's  sister,  a  young 
man  called  Joseph.  He  was  highly  esteemed  by 
the  people  and  worthy  of  admiration.  When  the 
alarm  got  abroad  of  the  doom  which  hung  over 
Jerusalem,  Joseph  came  forward.  He  told  his 
uncle  he  certainly  ought  to  go  to  court  to  plead 
with  the  offended  king.  But  the  high  priest's 
cynical  indifference  made  all  remonstrance  hope- 
less. Then  Joseph  asked  whether  he  might  be 
sent  himself  as  envoy ;  and  when  his  uncle  agreed 
readily  enough,  he  at  once  set  to  work  for  the 
salvation  of  his  people.  He  first  of  all  laid  him- 
self out  to  give  such  an  entertainment  to  the 
king's  envoy  at  Jerusalem  that  the  man  went 
back  to  Alexandria  loud  in  his  praises.  He  had 
made  friends  at  court. 

"Then  Joseph  went  down  himself  to  Egypt 
with  a  train  of  animals,  carrying  splendid  rai- 

54 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

ment  and  silver  plate  and  money  to  the  amount 
20,000  drachmas,  which  he  had  borrowed  from 
his  friends.  It  was  at  the  moment  when  many 
of  the  principal  men  of  both  Syria  and  Phenicia 
were  going  up  to  Alexandria  to  bid  for  the  right 
of  farming  the  provincial  taxes  for  the  ensuing 
year.  These  rights  were  sold  by  the  common 
custom  of  antiquity  to  the  highest  bidder;  the 
tax-farmer  contracted  to  pay  a  certain  sum  down 
to  the  government,  and  then  kept  for  himself 
whatever  he  could  raise  from  the  taxes  over  and 
above.  Joseph  maintained  a  very  humble  ap- 
pearance as  he  journeyed  with  these  grandees; 
he  allowed  them  to  make  merry  over  his 
poverty;  they  did  not  know  what  the  bales  up- 
on his  animals'  backs  contained. 

'  'In  Egypt  he  at  once  sought  the  king,  and 
was  introduced  with  enthusiasm  by  the  late  en- 
voy to  Jerusalem.  The  Jewish  history  now  de- 
picts proudly  the  terms  of  jovial  familiarity  on 
which  Joseph  associated  with  royalty.  When  the 
day  came  for  the  auction  of  the  taxes,  Joseph  un- 
dertook to  farm  the  taxes  of  the  whole  province 
at  a  figure  double  that  bid  by  the  magnates, 
whom  he  roundly  acused  of  having  made  a  ring 
to  defraud  the  government.  The  king  inquired 
of  Joseph  whom  he  could  name  as  his  guarantors 
for  so  large  a  sum,  and  Joseph  immediately 
55 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

named  the  king  and  queen  themselves.  Ptolemy 
was  quite  overcome  by  this  sally  of  wit,  and 
thought  Joseph  the  most  delightful  young  man 
he  had  ever  met.    The  tender  was  accepted. 

* '  When  he  entered  upon  the  task  of  collecting 
the  taxes,  a  time  of  horror  came  to  the  province. 
He  robbed  everybody  alike,  Jew  and  Gentile. 
The  king  gave  him  two  thousand  soldiers  and 
left  the  cities  at  his  mercy.  In  Ascalon,  where 
his  demands  were  opposed,  he  executed  twenty 
of  the  chief  men.  The  other  cities  in  terror 
paid  all  he  asked.  He  grew  very  rich.  In  his 
wealth  he  did  not  forget  to  pay  court  to  the 
great.  The  king  and  queen  of  Egypt,  and 
everyone  who  had  influence  at  court,  were  kept 
in  good  humor  by  an  unfailing  stream  of  well- 
placed  gifts. 

"For  two-and-twenty  years,"  the  story  says, 
"Joseph  grew  fabulously  rich  at  the  expense  of 
the  province.  Often  the  figure  of  this  assertive 
Jew  was  seen  at  the  royal  feasts  in  Alexandria. 
Once,  while  at  court,  becoming  hypnotized  by  one 
of  the  dancing  girls  of  the  king,  he  laid  plans  to 
make  her  his  own.  On  the  night  of  his  marriage, 
being  under  the  influence  of  strong  drink,  his 
brother  substituted  his  daughter  as  the  bride. 
When  Joseph  became  sober,  a  true  attachment  to 
this  true-born  daughter  of  Jerusalem  was  born 

56 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

in  him;  and  she  was  the  mother  of  his  son  who 
succeeded  him  in  the  tax  business/ ' 

We  are  taught  by  this  story  why  it  was  that 
the  tax-gatherers  mentioned  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment were  men  out  of  repute.  This  story  ex- 
plains their  character  and  helps  us  to  interpret 
them  aright. 

We  have  seen  the  bad.  Let  us  turn  to  the 
good,  for  there  was  the  good  in  those  Pre-Macca- 
bean  days.  There  were  royal  Jews  then,  who 
were  true  to  their  people  and  true  to  their  cove- 
nant God.  They  were  in  the  minority ;  but  they 
grandly  brought  the  true  religion  down  to  pos- 
terity, and  to  its  climax  in  Him  who  fulfilled  all 
the  types,  and  all  the  promises,  and  all  the  ideals 
of  Hebraism. 

One  of  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament  Apoc- 
rypha serves  us  here.  It  opens  an  historical  win- 
dow into  this  era,  through  which  we  can  look 
into  the  world  of  Pre-Maccabean  Jerusalem.  It 
shows  us  the  good  that  reigned,  and  the  princi- 
ples that  prevailed  among  the  loyal  ones.  It  is 
called  the  book  of  Ecclesiasticus.  It  belongs  to 
the  Wisdom  Literature  of  those  times.  The 
author  of  the  book  was  one  named  Jesus.  The 
book  is  described  as  "The  Wisdom  of  Jesus  the 
son  of  Sirach."  A  great  flood  of  knowledge  is 
poured  out,  in  this  book  by  Ben-sira.  He  gives 
57  j 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

us  just  what  the  pious  Jew  had  before  him ;  and 
what  he  believed;  and  the  life  he  aimed  to  live. 
His  book  is  an  index  of  the  mental  habit;  the 
circle  of  ideas  which  marked  the  solid  central 
law-abiding  mass  of  the  citizens  of  Jerusalem. 
He  lets  us  hear  what  sort  of  counsel  the  Hebrew 
youth  got  from  the  graybeards  of  the  Holy  City. 
The  book  is  a  Jewish  interior.  I  touch  lightly 
on  this  book  now  because  it  will  come  before  us 
in  our  chapter  upon  ' '  The  Old  Testament  Apoc- 
rypha." In  the  fiftieth  chapter  of  this  book, 
this  Jesus  of  the  Apocrypha  introduces  us  to 
Simeon  the  high  priest,  the  son  of  Onias,  as  one 
of  the  typical  saints  of  Pre-Maccabean  Jeru- 
salem, who  kept  the  city  true  to  God.  He  was 
known  as  Simon  the  Righteous.  He  not  only 
looked  after  the  religious  life  of  the  people;  he 
looked  also  after  their  political  life.  He  forti- 
fied the  city;  he  repaired  the  Temple;  he  built 
the  great  reservoir.  He  made  for  himself  a 
great  name  in  sacred  history  and  became  the 
typical  embodiment  of  the  high  priesthood  in 
Pre-Maccabean  days  to  the  imagination  of  the 
later  Jews.  "It  is  given  as  his  characteristic 
maxim  that  the  three  pillars  upon  which  the 
world  rests  are  the  Law,  the  Holy  Ritual,  and 
Loving-kindness. ' '  Of  Simeon,  the  Talmud  and 
the  Mishnah  say:    "In  his  days  the  red  cord  on 

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BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

the  head  of  the  scape-goat  turned  white :  a  sym- 
bol of  the  national  sins  put  away.  The  lamps 
in  the  Temple  never  went  out;  and  the  flame  on 
the  altar  burnt  always  clear  and  strong.' ' 
(Derenbourg  Histoire  et  Geog  de  la  Palestine, 
p.  48.)  His  presence  in  Israel  was  the  assurance 
of  the  people's  peace. 

Let  me  quote  from  the  Old  Testament  Apocry- 
pha, and  thus  present  this  typical  and  holy  man 
ex  cathedra.    (Ecclesiasticus  50:  5.) 


How  glorious  was  ne  when  the  people  gathered  round 

him 
At  his  coming  out  of  the  sanctuary! 
He  was  as  the  morning  star  in  the  midst  of  a  cloud : 
And  as  the  moon  at  the  full. 
He  was  as  the  sun  shining  upon  the  Temple  of  the 

Most  High: 
And  as  the  rainbow  giving  light  in  clouds  of  glory. 

When  he  took  up  the  robe  of  glory, 

And  put  on  the  perfection  of  exaltation: 

In  the  ascent  of  the  Holy  Altar, 

He  made  glorious  the  precinct  of  the  sanctuary. 

And  when  he  received  the  portions  out  of  the  priests' 

hands, 
Himself  also  standing  by  the  hearth  of  the  altar, 
59 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

His  brethren  as  a  garland  round  about  him; 
He  was  as  a  young  cedar  in  Libanus. 
And  all  the  sons  of  Aaron  in  their  glory 
Were  round  about  him  as  palm-trees. 

When  he  stretched  out  his  hand  to  the  cup 
And  poured  of  the  blood  of  the  grape, 
He  poured  out  at  the  foot  of  the  altar 
A  sweet-smelling  savor  unto  the  Most  High,  the  King 
of  all. 

Then  shouted  the  sons  of  Aaron, 
Then  sounded  the  silver-trumpets; 
And  made  a  great  noise  to  be  heard 
For  a  remembrance  before  the  Most  High. 

Then  all  the  people  hasted  together,  hasted 

And  fell  down  upon  the  earth  on  their  faces 

To  worship  their  Lord,  the  Almighty,  God  Most  High. 

The  singers  also  praised  Him  with  their  voices; 
In  the  whole  house  was  there  made  sweet  melody. 
And  the  people  besought  the  Lord  Most  High, 
In  prayer  before  Him  that  is  merciful, 
Till  the  worship  of  the  Lord  should  be  ended : 
And  so  they  accomplished  His  service. 
Then  he  went  down,  and  lifted  up  his  hands 
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BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 


Over  the  whole  congregation  of  the  children  of  Israel, 
To  give  blessing  unto  the  Lord  with  his  lips; 
And  to  glory  in  his  name. 

And  he  bowed  in  worship  the  second  time 
To  declare  the  blessing  from  the  Most  High : 

"And  now  bless  ye  the  God  of  all, 

Which  everywhere  doeth  great  things. 

Which  exalteth  our  days  from  the  womb 

And  dealeth  with  us  according  to  His  mercy. 

May  He  grant  us  joy  fulness  of  heart, 

And  that  peace  may  be  in  our  days  in  Israel  for  the 

days  of  eternity : 
To  intrust  His  mercy  with  us. 
And  let  Him  deliver  us  in  His  time." 


This  is  nothing  short  of  the  magnificent.  It  is 
a  good  ending  of  our  study  of  the  Pre-Macca- 
bean  times. 

Having  studied  the  Pre-Maccabean  years  of 
the  Palestinian  Jews  under  the  Ptolomaic  su- 
premacy, we  now  give  ourselves  to  the  study  of 
those  years  known  as  the  Maccdbean  and  Post- 
Maccabean  years. 

They  were  the  years  which  the  Palestinian 

61 


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Jews  spent  under  the  Seleueid  and  Roman  su- 
premacies. The  chief  ruler  of  the  House  of 
Seleueid,  who  fills  our  eye  here,  is  Antiochus 
Epiphanes,  175  B.  C.  When  he  came  to  the 
throne  at  Antioch,  Hellenism  had  made  large  in- 
roads into  Jewish  society.  This  was  the  result 
of  the  large  emoluments  obtained  by  wealthy 
Jews  at  the  Court  of  Antioch.  Jerusalem  was 
more  and  more  abandoning  her  exclusiveness. 
Even  in  Jerusalem,  Greek  costumes  were  worn 
by  young  Jews  of  the  aristocracy  and  Greek 
manners  were  assumed. 

The  following  piece  of  history  from  the  Old 
Testament  Apocrypha  throws  light  upon  this  im- 
mediate period : 

"But  when  Seleucus  was  deceased,  and  Anti- 
ochus, who  was  called  Epiphanes,  succeeded  to 
the  kingdom,  Jason  the  brother  of  Onias  sup- 
planted his  brother  in  the  high  priesthood,  hav- 
ing promised  unto  the  king  at  an  audience  three 
hundred  and  threescore  talents  of  silver,  and 
out  of  another  fund  eighty  talents;  and  besides 
this,  he  undertook  to  assign  a  hundred  and  fifty 
more,  if  it  might  be  allowed  him  through  the 
king's  authority  to  set  him  up  a  Greek  place  of 
exercise  and  form  a  body  of  youths  to  be  trained 
therein,  and  to  register  the  inhabitants  of  Jeru- 
salem as  citizens  of  Antioch.     And  when  the 

62 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

king  had  given  assent,  and  he  had  gotten  pos- 
session of  the  office,  he  forthwith  brought  over 
them  of  his  own  race  to  the  Greek  fashion.  And 
setting  aside  the  royal  ordinances  of  special 
favor  to  the  Jews,  granted  by  the  means  of  John 
the  father  of  Eupolemus,  who  went  on  the  em- 
bassage to  the  Romans  for  friendship  and  alli- 
ance, and  seeking  to  overthrow  the  lawful  modes 
of  life,  he  brought  in  new  customs  forbidden  by 
the  law;  for  he  eagerly  established  a  Greek  place 
of  exercise  under  the  citadel  itself,  and  caused 
the  noblest  of  the  young  men  to  wear  the  Greek 
cap.  And  thus  there  was  an  extreme  of  Greek 
fashions,  and  an  advance  of  an  alien  religion,  by 
reason  of  the  exceeding  profaneness  of  Jason, 
that  ungodly  man  and  no  high  priest;  so  that 
the  priests  had  no  more  any  zeal  for  the  service 
of  the  altar,  but  despising  the  sanctuary  and 
neglecting  the  sacrifices,  they  hastened  to  enjoy 
that  which  was  unlawfully  provided  in  the  pal- 
estra, after  the  summons  of  the  discus,  making 
of  no  account  the  honors  of  their  fathers,  and 
thinking  the  glories  of  the  Greeks  best  of  all." 
(Second  Maccabees  4:7-16.) 

Thus  it  was  on  the  one  hand.     On  the  other 

hand  this  treason  in  influential  quarters — i.  e., 

among    the    nobility— provoked    a    reaction    in 

other  circles.    Those  of  the  people  who  loved  the 

63 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

good  old  ways  closed  their  ranks  in  rigid  op- 
position. They  formed  themselves  into  a  relig- 
ious and  state  party  known  as  "the  Hasidim" 
— "the  godly."  This  party  developed  in  the 
course  of  time  into  a  well-known  sect,  the 
Pharisees.  The  Pharisees  were  the  party  of  the 
people,  just  as  the  Sadducees  were  the  party  of 
the  aristocracy. 

Thus  things  were  when  Antiochus  Epiphanes 
came  to  the  throne  of  the  House  of  Seleucid. 
He  was  a  man  of  reckless  vehemence ;  vehemence 
was  his  temperament.  His  surname  was  "Epi- 
phanes"— "God  made  manifest."  Popular  wit 
changed  it  to  "Epimanes,"  "the  madman." 
Popular  wit  was  keen  and  true.  As  Antiochus 
was  an  intense  Hellenist,  he  saw  in  his  kingdom 
a  field  in  which  to  operate  as  the  crowned  apostle 
of  Hellenism.  As  Jerusalem  seemed  to  have 
some  Hellenistic  tendencies,  he  began  his  work  of 
proselytizing  there.  He  put  an  evil  man  over 
Jerusalem.  The  theater  and  the  gymnasium  were 
introduced.  He  entered  the  Temple  and  robbed 
it  of  all  its  treasures.  He  appropriated  the 
golden  altar,  and  the  golden  candlesticks,  and 
the  golden  censers,  and  the  golden  cups  to  pour 
withal;  and  scaled  off  the  adorning  gold  which 
was  on  the  face  of  the  Temple.  He  transformed 
the  Holy  City  into  a  Greek  garrison,  and  then 

64 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

turned  the  sacred  Temple  of  Jehovah  into  a 
temple  of  Olympian  Zeus.  The  services  of  the 
Temple  were  recast  in  Greek  forms,  with  an 
image  of  a  god  which  bore  the  features  of 
Antiochus  himself.  In  the  sacred  precincts  he 
slaughtered  swine,  and  sprinkled  the  blood  on 
everything  counted  holy.  The  two  Maccabean 
Psalms  in  the  Hebrew  Psalter,  the  74th  and 
79th,  reflect  the  horrors  of  the  situation.  It  is 
not  strange  that,  amid  these  fearful  calamities, 
when  imagination  was  at  full  tension  and  hearts 
were  cloven  with  anxiety,  portents  are  reported. 
In  2  Mace.  5:  5-10  we  read:  " Through  all  the 
city,  for  the  space  almost  of  forty  days,  there 
were  seen  horsemen  galloping  through  the  air, 
and  squadrons  of  cavalry  in  array. ' ' 

A  fearful  persecution  was  now  decreed  by  An- 
tiochus. All  sacred  books  were  destroyed,  and 
merely  to  possess  a  copy  of  God's  Law  was  de- 
clared to  be  a  capital  offense.  Sabbath-keeping, 
circumcision,  and  all  Mosaic  ordinances,  were 
forbidden  on  the  pain  of  death.  The  people 
were  compelled  to  eat  the  flesh  of  swine.  In- 
stead of  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles,  Antiochus 
instituted  Bacchanalian  processions;  and  old 
and  grave  Israelites  were  compelled  to  join  the 
processions  wearing  joy- wreaths  around  their 
heads.       Commissioners     were     instructed     to 

65 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

destroy  Judaism  root  and  branch;  and  to  insist 
that  all  the  inhabitants  of  Palestine  duly  con- 
form to  pagan  rites. 

Jewish  tradition  tells  proudly  of  men  who 
bravely  died  for  their  ancestral  faiths — of  a 
scribe  ninety  years  of  age,  who,  stript  of  clothes 
but  wrapt  in  the  dignity  of  old  age  and  piety, 
passed  through  death  to  the  robes  of  white ;  and 
of  seven  brothers  who  bore  the  fearful  torments 
of  the  rack  and  wheel  and  scourge  and  flame 
rather  than  break  the  Law,  while  their  mother 
stood  by  and  encouraged  them  to  endure.  '  *  These 
were  the  vanguard  of  the  noble  army  of  mar- 
tyrs. " 

But  let  us  cheer  up !  The  Maccabees  are  com- 
ing! Antiochus  had  overreached  himself.  Out 
in  one  of  the  villages  an  aged  priest,  Mattathias, 
proudly  refused  to  sacrifice  to  the  Greek  gods; 
slew  a  renegade  Jew ;  struck  down  the  royal  com- 
missioner; and  with  his  five  sons  fled  to  the 
mountain  fortresses.  This  was  the  fruitful  be- 
ginning of  a  revolt.  Events  had  come  to  so  hor- 
rible a  pass,  that  there  was  no  way  but  to  take 
the  sword  and  to  look  to  God  for  success.  This 
handful  of  brave  men  drew  others  around  them ; 
and  the  insurgents  went  through  the  country 
destroying  heathen  altars,  slaying  apostates,  re- 
viving Jewish  rites,  and  reopening  Synagogs. 
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BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

This  movement  put  a  new  life  into  the  Jewish 
nation.  It  was  a  resurrection  from  the  dead. 
But  Mattathias  was  an  old,  old  man,  and  the 
time  came  for  him  to  die.  Before  going  he  saw  to 
it  that  the  new  cause  should  not  die.  His  death- 
bed scene,  as  pictured  in  the  First  Book  of  the 
Maccabees,  second  chapter,  is  a  most  touching 
scene.  It  is  even  highly  dramatic.  He  called 
his  friends  and  family  about  him,  and  put  them 
under  solemn  obligation  to  God  and  country. 
He  told  what  God  had  been  to  Israel,  and  thus 
inspired  faith;  and  then  he  recounted  what  the 
heroes  of  the  nation  under  their  faith  in  God 
had  done,  and  thus  inspired  courage.  Then  he 
appointed  Judas  Maccabeus,  his  son,  to  be  the 
leader  of  the  great  reformation  which  he  had  in- 
augurated, when  he  had  gone  up  to  God.  He  es- 
pecially addrest  his  sons.  Thus  he  spoke:  "As 
for  Judas  Maccabeus,  he  hath  been  mighty  and 
strong  even  from  his  youth  up ;  let  him  be  your 
captain,  and  fight  the  battle  of  the  people.  Take 
also  unto  you  all  those  that  observe  the  law,  and 
avenge  ye  the  wrong  of  your  people.  Recom- 
pense fully  the  heathen,  and  take  heed  to  the 
commandments  of  the  law."  So  he  blest  them 
and  was  gathered  to  his  fathers.  He  died  in 
the  hundred  and  forty-sixth  year  of  his  life,  and 
his  sons  buried  him  in  the  sepulcher  of  his 
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BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

fathers  at  Modin;  and  all  Israel  made  great 
lamentation  for  him."     (1  Mace.  2:66-70.) 

His  son,  Judas  Maccabeus,  who  succeeded  to 
the  leadership,  was  one  of  the  bravest  men  that 
ever  lived.  Under  him  ''The  Lion  of  the  Tribe 
of  Judah ' '  once  more  lifted  its  head.  Maccabeus 
means  the  hammer  of  his  foes.  He  was  the  Jew- 
ish ideal  of  "the  happy  warrior,"  uniting  mili- 
tary skill  with  absolute  confidence  in  God. 

The  story  of  the  House  of  the  Maccabees,  and 
its  ascendency  to  complete  power,  is  told  with 
the  greatest  fulness  by  two  of  the  books  of  the 
Old  Testament  Apocrypha — viz:  First  and  Sec- 
ond Books  of  the  Maccabees.  The  story  as  told 
by  these  Apocryphal  books  is  twofold.  The  first 
of  these  books,  First  Maccabees,  contains  a  rec- 
ord of  priceless  worth  written  soon  after  the 
events  and  drawn  largely  from  the  author's 
personal  knowledge  and  recollection.  Present- 
day  scholars  are  unanimous  in  appraising  it  as 
an  essentially  trustworthy  document  in  which 
facts  are  allowed  to  speak  for  themselves.  It 
was  written  in  Hebrew  and  by  a  Sadducee 
whose  name  is  now  unknown. 

The  Second  Book  of  Maccabees  covers  the 
same  ground  as  its  predecessor,  and  is  supple- 
mentary thereto.  It  was  written  later  and  in 
the  Greek,  and  by  an  author  of  Pharisaic  pro- 
68 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

clivities,  who  had  a  great  fondness  for  the  mar- 
velous. There  are  in  it  astounding  miracles  con- 
cerning which  the  former  book  is  silent.  For  ex- 
ample, Judas  is  surrounded  by  angelic  cham- 
pions. Sometimes  his  little  band  is  led  by  a 
mystic  horseman  in  white;  and  often  in  the 
thick  of  a  battle  five  splendid  horsemen  appear 
suddenly,  as  if  from  heaven.  They  were  the 
guardian  angels  of  the  five  gallant  brothers. 
This  Second  Book  was  composed  for  edification 
according  to  the  taste  of  the  times.  When  they 
reached  their  supremacy,  nothing  was  considered 
as  too  great  or  marvelous  to  be  predicated  of  the 
Maccabees.  They  were  all  of  them,  John,  and 
Simon,  and  Judas,  and  Eleazer,  and  Jonathan, 
men  of  visions  and  exploits.  They  made  a  new- 
nation  of  Israel.  They  brought  it  back  to  an  har- 
monious devotion  to  the  worship  of  Jehovah. 
With  them  it  was  war  to  the  hilt  of  the  sword 
against  conquering  paganism.  They  gave  the 
nation  a  new  intensity  of  piety.  When  they 
reached  their  supremacy,  Israel  not  only  had  a 
priest  but  a  king  also.  They  brought  back  the 
throne  to  Israel.  For  sixty-five  years  Israel 
was  an  independent  nation;  it  had  a  king  of  its 
own,  and  was  subject  to  no  one.  All  this  was 
the  doing  of  the  Maccabees.  This  continued 
until  the  Romans  became  the  world-power,  in 
place  of  the  Greeks,  and  conquered  Palestine. 
69 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

We  have  space  here  for  only  a  fragmentary 
story  of  the  Maccabees.  But  this  will  be  suf- 
ficient to  give  us  an  idea  of  the  period  between 
the  Testaments. 

When  Judas  was  appointed  by  his  dying 
father  the  head  of  the  Maccabean  revolt,  six 
thousand  men,  who  preferred  death  to  unfaith- 
fulness, rallied  around  him.  He  scattered  the 
first  Syrian  army  that  was  sent  against  him; 
and  then  a  second  army.  "From  mighty  kings 
he  took  the  spoil."  Exasperated  by  the  failure 
of  two  armies,  Antiochus  sent  a  third  army 
of  sixty  thousand  to  hunt  him  down.  Terror 
spread  among  his  ranks  and  many  fell  away. 
Judas,  seeing  this,  followed  the  example  of  Gid- 
eon and  winnowed  his  forces.  He  called  to  all 
cowards:  "Fall  out  of  line."  A  gallant  band 
of  three  thousand  remained.  With  these  he 
threw  himself  one  night  upon  the  sixty  thousand 
of  Antiochus.  Nothing  could  resist  the  attack. 
The  Syrians  fled  in  panic  through  the  whole 
night,  while  the  victors  sang  Psalm  136 — the 
national  anthem  of  their  race — enumerating  the 
never-ending  mercies  of  their  God.  The  way 
now  lay  open  for  Judas  to  enter  Jerusalem. 
Entering  the  Holy  City  he  found  the  Temple  in 
ruins.  Then  those  warriors  who  had  destroyed 
three  armies,  fell  on  their  faces,  threw  dust  on 
70 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

their  heads,  and  wept  aloud.  They  restored  all 
that  could  be  restored  and  dedicated  the  Temple 
anew. 

This  is  a  sample  of  the  career  of  Judas  which 
he  closed  one  day  on  the  battle-field.  When  he 
died  he  was  canonized  by  the  popular  voice.  He 
had  lifted  Judea  out  of  the  dust.  Displaying  a 
patriotism,  a  generalship,  and  a  heroism  of  which 
his  race  will  evermore  be  proud,  he  rendered  a 
yet  more  signal  service,  for  he  inspired  his 
countrymen  with  a  new  sense  of  their  religion. 

When  Judas  died  he  was  succeeded  by  his 
brothers,  one  after  another,  until  the  original 
five  had  joined  their  father  in  the  ranks  above. 
Then  the  sons  of  the  five  took  up  the  cause  of 
Israel,  and  became  kings  and  priests  among  the 
Covenant  People  of  God,  until  the  House  of  the 
Maccabees  had  ascended  to  supremacy,  and  then 
descended  and  finished  its  course.  It  was  dur- 
ing the  leadership  of  this  House  that  the  terri- 
tory of  the  Palestinian  Jews  was  enlarged  until 
it  took  in  the  three  divisions  which  we  find  at 
the  coming  of  the  Christ — viz:  Judea,  Samaria, 
and  Galilee.  It  was  during  this  era  that  the  dif- 
ferent religious  sects  arose,  which  played  their 
part  in  the  days  of  the  Master. 

I  must  stop  at  this  point  to  mention  one 
agency  which  was  at  work  during  the  Maccabean 

71 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

times,  sustaining  and  instructing  and  informing 
the  faith,  and  adding  courage  to  the  Palestinian 
Jews.  /  mean  the  Book  of  Enoch.  This  was  an 
influence  also  during  what  remained  of  the 
period  oetween  the  Testaments  after  the  days 
of  the  Maccabees — i.  e.,  during  the  Roman  su- 
premacy under  which  Palestine  came.  This  is 
a  remarkable  book.  In  the  earliest  Christian 
literature  we  find  it  highly  spoken  of.  The 
fathers  even  quote  it  as  scripture;  Jude,  the 
writer  of  one  of  the  Epistles  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, also  quoted  from  it.  It  told  in  shaping 
his  faith.  This  book  was  lost.  For  a  long  time 
it  entirely  disappeared.  But  about  a  hundred 
years  ago  an  adventurous  Scot  by  the  name  of 
Bruce  traveling  in  Abyssinia  picked  up  and 
brought  home  a  book  in  the  Etheopic  language, 
which  when  submitted  to  a  learned  examination 
turned  out  to  be  this  lost  Booh  of  Enoch.  The 
story  of  its  finding,  and  an  analysis  of  its  con- 
tents, are  given  by  Dr.  James  Stalker  of  Glas- 
gow in  one  of  his  popular  lectures  on  The  Back- 
ground, of  the  Life  of  Christ.  It  is  a  very  long 
book.  It  has  seventy  chapters  and  more.  It  is 
probably  a  number  of  books  glued  together.  It 
dates  back  two  centuries  before  Christ.  The 
writer  has  been  called  the  " Hebrew  Dante.' ' 
His  wanderings  through  the  remote  places  of  the 

72 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

universe  bear  some  resemblance  to  Dante's  wan- 
derings in  The  Inferno,  The  Purgatorio,  and  The 
Paradiso.  The  book  opens:  "The  words  of  the 
blessing  of  Enoch,  how  he  blest  the  elect  and 
the  righteous;  who  were  to  exist  in  the  time  of 
trouble,  rejecting  all  the  wicked  and  ungodly. 
Enoch,  a  righteous  man  who  was  with  God, 
answered  and  spake,  while  his  eyes  were  open 
and  while  he  saw  a  holy  vision  in  the  heavens. 
Thus  the  angels  showed  me  the  things  that  will 
take  place  at  a  distant  period  on  account  of  the 
Elect.' ' 

The  book  you  see  is  an  apocalypse.  You  can 
see  also  that  it  was  just  fitted  for  times  like 
those  we  have  been  studying.  According  to  a 
method,  characteristics  of  apocalyptic  writings, 
the  developments  of  history  are  represented  by 
a  procession  of  animals,  in  which  Israel  is  a  race 
of  white  sheep;  and  the  nations  who  oppress 
them  are  lions,  bears,  eagles.  The  part  of  the 
book  which  especially  applies  to  these  last  times 
of  the  Hebrews  is  that  known  as  the  Similitudes. 
Its  peculiar  feature  is  this:  The  Day  of  Judg- 
ment is  coming,  and  this  will  be  the  day  of  de- 
liverance and  reward  for  those  who  suffer  for 
God.  The  Lord's  Anointed,  the  Son  of  David, 
the  Righteous,  the  Elect  One,  the  Mystic  Son  of 
Man,  the  Promised  Hebrew  Messiah,  the  Light 
73 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

of  the  Gentiles,  will  bring  that  day.  And  He 
is  on  the  way.  The  signs  of  his  coming  are 
already  visible  and  unmistakable.  Then  what? 
Why  this:  "In  the  new  heaven  and  the  new 
earth  the  righteous  will  form  a  glorious  church 
about  the  Holy  person  of  the  Son  of  Man. ' '  But 
what  of  those  who  die  before  he  comes  ?  Listen ! 
"The  spirits  of  those  of  you  who  die  in  right- 
eousness will  live  and  rejoice  and  be  glad. 
Your  spirits  will  not  perish,  but  your  memorial 
will  be  before  the  face  of  the  Great  One  unto  all 
generations  of  the  world."  "Be  hopeful;  for 
aforetime  ye  were  put  to  shame  through  ills  and 
afflictions;  but  soon  ye  will  shine  and  will  be 
seen,  and  the  portals  of  heaven  will  be  opened 
unto  you."  You  see  where  the  doctrine  of  im- 
mortality, which  so  shines  in  the  opening  of  the 
New  Testament,  comes  from;  and  you  see  also 
who  helped  to  create  the  expectation  of  the  im- 
mediate coming  of  the  Messiah  which  filled  the 
Jewish  atmosphere;  and  which  was  voiced  by 
the  preaching  of  John  the  Baptist  in  the  first 
pages  of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ.  There  is 
a  great  resemblance  between  the  statements  of 
the  Book  of  Enoch  and  the  utterances  of  the  New 
Testament;  and  even  the  utterances  of  the  Mas- 
ter Himself.  It  was  the  Book  of  Enoch  that  put 
the  Messianic  things  into  the  Hebrew  atmosphere 

7A 


BETWEEN   THE  TESTAMENTS 

and  kept  them  within  the  vision  of  the  people. 
It  was  the  immediate  preparation  for  the  Christ 
and  the  Kingdom  which  He  preached. 

One  more  section  of  history!  With  the  fall 
of  the  House  of  the  Maccabees  came  the  ascend- 
ency and  supremacy  of  the  great  world-power, 
Rome.  In  the  year  63  B.  C.  Pompey  entered 
Syria  with  the  Roman  army.  He  conquered  Pal- 
estine and  made  it  tributary.  He  did  not  how- 
ever disturb  the  temple  nor  the  religious  life  of 
the  Jews.  The  Jews  were  granted  large  liber- 
ties; yet  at  times  under  the  Romans  there  were 
great  sufferings.  Cassius,  whose  dagger  was 
driven  into  the  heart  of  the  great  Caesar,  sold 
thirty  thousand  of  the  Jews  as  slaves  to  cruel 
taskmasters.  Those  were  the  days  of  the  Ro- 
man wars ;  and  of  the  Roman  men,  Caesar,  and 
Antony,  and  Brutus,  and  Cassius — the  men  and 
the  events  out  of  which  Shakespeare  builds  his 
great  historical  dramas  and  educational  plays. 
The  one  ruler  who  figures  most  largely  now  is 
the  Idumean  Herod,  whom  Antony  made  king 
of  Judea.  He  was  not  a  Jew,  but  he  was  close- 
ly allied  to  the  Jews.  One  of  his  wives  was  a 
daughter  of  the  House  of  the  Maccabees,  the 
stately  and  beautiful  Mariamme.  But  he  was 
jealous  of  her  sons — his  sons,  too — so  he  mur- 
dered both  her  and  them.  They  were  the  last 
75 


,-- 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

of  the  Maccabees ;  and  in  their  death  that  House 
went  out  of  existence. 

Herod  did  many  good  things,  however,  for 
the  Jews.  It  was  he  who  rebuilt  the  Temple  on 
the  scale  of  a  new  magnificence.  * '  The  workmen 
on  the  new  Temple  were  all  priests  who  had  been 
specially  trained.' '  The  scale  of  grandeur  was 
such  that  it  became  a  proverb,  "He  that  hath 
not  seen  Herod's  Temple  hath  seen  nothing 
beautiful."  Its  style  of  architecture  bore  wit- 
ness to  the  prevailing  Greek  culture.  The  Master 
Himself  taught  in  its  costly  courts.  "Then 
answered  the  Jews  and  said  unto  Him:  'Forty 
and  six  years  was  this  Temple  in  building,  and 
wilt  thou  rear  it  up  in  three  days?'  "  "Master, 
see  what  manner  of  stones,  and  what  buildings 
are  here!"  The  Jews  were  proud  of  Herod's 
Temple.  When  Herod  died  in  the  year  5  B.  C. 
Caesar  divided  Palestine  among  Archelaus, 
Herod  Antipas  (he  who  put  John  the  Baptist 
to  death),  and  Philip. 

The  blank  between  the  Two  Testaments  is 
filled.  We  are  ready  now  for  the  Christ,  and 
the  Cross,  and  the  New  Testament  with  its 
grand  finalities,  its  glorious  gospel,  its  reign  of 
the  Holy  Spirit,  its  Golden  Age,  its  City  of  God 
coming  down  out  of  heaven  to  earth,  and  the 
realization  of  the  things  prepared  by  God  for 
76 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

his  own  people;  which  are  symbolized  by  the 
gold  and  precious  stones  and  harps  and  crowns 
of  its  Apocalypse.  These  are  certainties  because 
of  the  immanence  of  God  in  human  destiny. 


POSTLUDE 

In  a  further  study  of  the  Interbiblical  period, 
the  reader  will  be  interested  and  helped  by  two 
recent  publications:  (1)  The  Bible  as  English 
Literature  (1906)  ;  (2)  The  Silver  Age  of  the 
Greek  World  (1906).  Both  of  these  books 
should  have  a  place  in  the  library  of  every  Bible 
student. 

The  Bible  as  English  Literature  has  for  its 
author  J.  H.  Gardiner,  Professor  of  English 
in  Harvard  University.  Professor  Gardiner 
proves  himself  in  every  way  a  man  abreast  of 
the  times.  His  volume  is  based  on  the  conclu- 
sions of  the  latest  Biblical  scholarship.  It  util- 
izes the  very  best  of  the  latest  criticism  of  our 
age.  It  is  essentially  constructive,  and  com- 
mends itself  by  its  naturalism.  It  is  a  genuine 
thesaurus  of  instructive  facts.  The  Bible  as 
English  Literature  is  certainly  a  most  fascina- 
ting book ;  and  it  makes  the  Book  of  Books  f asci- 

77 


BETWEEN   THE  TESTAMENTS 

nating.  It  gives  it  a  new  life,  and  an  added 
power. 

The  part  of  Professor  Gardiner's  book  which 
especially  bears  upon  the  subject  we  have  in 
hand  is  the  Introduction.  Here  he  succinctly 
tells  the  story  of  the  construction  of  the  Bible, 
how  it  was  edited  and  reedited;  and  then  gives 
the  chronological  order  of  the  different  books 
of  the  Bible.  In  doing  this  he  sets  before  the 
reader  a  bird's-eye  view  of  the  whole  history  of 
the  Covenant  People  of  God.  I  have  tried  to 
make  an  excerpt  from  this  Introduction,  in  or- 
der to  let  the  author  illustrate  and  represent 
himself;  but  I  have  failed.  His  Introduction  is 
a  monograph  and  so  closely  knit  together  in  all 
its  parts  and  so  essentially  one,  that  it  will  not 
admit  of  being  broken  up  into  sample  parcels. 
It  must  be  read  as  a  whole.  I  would  as  soon 
think  of  cutting  into  strips  the  canvas  of  one  of 
Messonier's  masterpieces  to  illustrate  Messo- 
nier's  work,  as  think  of  breaking  up  the  Intro- 
troduction  is  his  masterpiece,  and  must  be  read 
English  Literature  into  excerpts  that  I  might 
illustrate  Professor  Gardiner's  work.  The  In- 
troduction is  his  masterpiece,  and  must  be  read 
in  its  entirety. 

The  Silver  Age  of  the  Greek  World  has  for 
its  author  John  Pentland  Mahaffy,  Professor  of 
78 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

Ancient  History  in  the  University  of  Dublin. 
This  book  shows  that  Professor  Mahaffy  is  in 
love  with  his  subject,  and  is  an  enthusiastic  all- 
around  scholar  of  Hellenism.  He  uses  the  very 
best  of  helps  in  his  work.  He  paints  from  the 
palettes  of  Dion  Chrysostom  and  Plutarch. 
These  two  Greek  scholars  have  mixed  the  colors 
for  him.  In  painting,  the  palette  is  no  secon- 
dary thing.  One  of  Whistler's  famous  sayings 
is:  "The  picture  is  practically  finished  on  the 
palette" — i.  e.,  when  the  paints  are  mixed  on 
the  palette,  you  have  before  you  the  representa- 
tive and  prevailing  tone  of  the  picture;  the 
lights  and  the  shades,  and  the  true  harmony  of 
all  its  colors.  While  Professor  Mahaffy  paints 
from  the  palettes  of  Dion  Chrysostom  and  Plu- 
tarch he  paints  well.  He  so  puts  his  own  genius 
into  his  picture  that  no  one  thinks  of  calling  it 
second-hand  brilliance. 

The  book  covers  three  centuries  in  all :  the  first 
and  second  centuries  B.  C.  and  the  first  century 
A.  D.  Altho  the  book  has  for  its  subject  The 
Silver  Age  of  the  Greek  Life,  it  is  full  of  the 
radiance  of  "The  Golden  Age"  of  Greek  Life. 
That  age,  however,  has  gone.  Professor  Mahaf- 
fy treats  of  it  in  a  former  book,  Greek  Life  and 
Thought.  The  best  that  The  Silver  Age  can  do 
is  to  imitate  "The  Golden  Age."  It  does  not 
79 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

create,  and  it  does  not  originate;  it  only  makes 
copies.  It  only  reproduces  the  ancient  master- 
pieces. There  is  no  Homer  in  it.  There  is  no 
Parthenon  of  Athens  in  it.  These  exist  only  as 
a  legacy. 

In  this  Silver  Age  Professor  Mahaffy  tells  us 
was  written  the  famous  Greek  tract  On  The  Sub- 
lime, which  maintains  its  influence  as  a  stand- 
ard in  art  even  to  this  day.  After  describing 
this  writing,  and  others  which  influenced  the 
people,  Professor  Mahaffy  gives  us  this  page, 
which  bears  on  the  period  between  the  Testa- 
ments : 

"  There  was,  indeed,  another  literary  work 
going  on  during  this  century  of  the  first  magni- 
tude, as  the  result  has  amply  proved ;  but  it  was 
in  a  remote  corner  of  Hellenism,  unknown,  more- 
over, to  the  most  learned  and  curious  of  the 
Greeks,  to  Dion  and  to  Plutarch.  For  there, 
where  Hellenism  had  to  struggle  with  the  force 
and  ability  of  Judaism,  teaching  and  learning 
with  the  interest  of  hate  and  the  relish  of  antag- 
onism— there,  among  the  common  people,  were 
springing  up  those  books  on  the  life  of  Jesus 
which  touch  the  hearts  of  men  with  a  directness 
and  force  very  foreign  to  the  flowery  and  rhetor- 
ical arguments  of  a  Philo  or  a  Josephus.  The 
simplicity,  the  natural  vigor,   the  unconscious 

80 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

picturesqueness  in  these  narratives  are  so  re- 
markable that,  even  had  they  never  laid  any 
claim  to  inspiration,  sound  judges  must  have 
condoned  their  faulty  grammar  and  poor  vo- 
cabulary, and  acknowledged  in  them  at  least 
the  voice  of  honest  men  speaking  from  the  heart, 
and  thus  endowed  with  one  of  the  highest  liter- 
ary qualities.  Whether  these  writers  were  in- 
deed '  Israelites '  or  not,  they  were,  as  writers, 
1  without  guile';  and  the  fact  that  they  all 
chose  Greek  for  their  medium  has  been  one 
great  cause  of  the  persistence  of  Greek  studies 
to  this  day. 

"The  slow  recognition  of  these  books — for 
their  influence  is  first  recognized,  and  only  in- 
directly, in  the  correspondence  of  Pliny,  if,  in- 
deed, the  movement  he  reports  did  not  result 
from  mere  preaching — is  a  feature  well  worthy 
of  our  notice.  Whether  they  were  kept  secret 
from  the  cavils  of  the  Greeks  we  know  not ;  but 
considering  the  principles  openly  asserted  in 
those  days,  considering  the  slavish  adherence  to 
the  great  Attic  models,  what  was  more  obvious, 
what  more  certain,  than  that  such  pictures  as 
the  opening  scenes  of  St.  Luke's  Gospel  or  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  would  be  despised  by  the 
critics  as  the  work  of  late-learning  and  self- 
taught  people,  who  knew  nothing  of  the  art  of 
81 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

expression  or  of  the  laws  of  composition?  And 
yet  the  world  has  judged  differently:  the  idyll 
of  Bethlehem  lives,  while  the  idyll  of  Euboea 
lies  buried  in  Dion ;  Herod  the  tyrant  lives,  while 
as  the  polished  Hellenist  he  is  forgotten;  the 
metaphors  on  the  mount,  the  parables  by  the 
way,  have  outlived  the  paradoxes  of  the  Stoic, 
the  rhetoric  of  the  schools. 

"Yet  as  the  vehicle  of  this  new  doctrine,  this 
new  exposition,  was  Greek;  so  it  borrowed  from 
Hellenism  much  of  its  tone,  of  its  terminology, 
of  its  subtler  thinking.  Let  no  man  imagine 
that  the  Christian  faith  owes  nothing,  or  even 
little,  to  the  Greeks.  'The  fulness  of  the  time' 
for  the  Gospel  came  when  Greek  conquered  Jew 
and  Jew  conquered  Greek,  and  the  world  in- 
herited the  legacy  of  their  struggle  through  Ro- 
man hands.,, 


82 


CHAPTER  III 

The  Old  Testament  Apocrypha  as  the  Book  of  the 
Period  Between  the  Testaments 


CHAPTER  III 

The  Old  Testament  Apocrypha 
as  the  Book  of  the  Period  Be- 
tween the  Testaments. 

BRERE  is  no  subject  more  fascinating 
than  the  Sacred  Books  of  antiquity. 
They  enshrine  the  very  gods.  The  gods 
can  inhabit  a  book  as  really  as  a  tem- 
ple. A  book  can  be  divine,  through  the  indwell- 
ing of  deity,  as  much  as  a  man  can  be.  The 
One  Living  and  True  God  can  reveal  Himself 
through  theophanic  words  as  truly  and  as  vivid- 
ly as  through  the  fire  of  the  flashing  Shekinah 
above  the  Tabernacle  of  Israel.  God  is  immi- 
nent in  the  Bible.  His  laws  are  there;  His 
thoughts  are  there ;  His  purposes  are  there ;  His 
providences  are  there;  yes,  He  himself  is  there. 
If  the  Bible  be  the  Book  of  God,  we  have  God 
Himself :  and  through  His  book  we  can  deal  di- 
rectly with  Him.  If  this  be  so,  it  makes  every 
question  pertaining  to  the  Bible  all-important. 
A  divine  book  is  certainly  a  divine  treasure. 

The  great  power  of  the  Bible  as  the  Book  of 

God  is  this:  it  is  constantly  being  reedited  and 

reissued.     This  keeps  it  living  and  up  to  date. 

How  is  it  being  reedited  and  reissued?    By  and 

85 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

through  human  experience.  Yonder  Christian 
man  on  the  bed  of  suffering,  his  faith  holding 
on  to  God,  his  life  purified  by  the  furnace  of  af- 
fliction, is  a  twentieth  century  edition  of  the 
Book  of  Job.  The  Chinese  martyrs  of  the  Boxer 
uprising  is  the  Book  of  Daniel,  with  its  lion's 
den  and  its  furnace  of  fire  heated  seven  times. 
The  story  of  Joan  of  Arc  is  that  part  of  the 
Book  of  Judges  which  tells  of  the  heroism  of 
Deborah,  translated  into  French  life. 

Is  the  canon  of  scripture  closed  ?  It  will  never 
be  closed.  When  God's  Book  ceases  to  be  re- 
written and  reedited  and  enlarged,  when  it  is 
allowed  to  exist  only  in  a  dead  language,  it  will 
itself  become  dead.  Human  experience  rewrites 
it  and  reedits  it. 

But  the  Bible  is  rewritten  and  reedited  in  an- 
other way.  Every  fresh  translation  of  it  re- 
writes and  reedits  it.  The  late  revision  of  the 
Bible  was,  in  a  limited  sense,  a  reopening  of  the 
question  of  canonicity.  The  version  of  the  re- 
vision is  not  precisely  the  same  as  what  is  known 
as  the  Authorized  Version.  Certain  phrases  and 
verses  and  sections  have  been  wholly  eliminated 
from  the  revision;  certain  words  have  been 
changed.  All  this  has  been  done  by  the  decree 
of  modern  scholarship.  Modern  scholarship,  af- 
ter comparing  ancient  version  with  ancient  ver- 
86 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

sion,  and  part  of  scripture  with  part  of  scrip- 
ture, and  the  study  of  cognate  languages,  and 
the  analysis  of  the  Bible  itself,  ordered  these 
changes;  and  the  revisers  obeyed.  There  are 
more  comparisons  going  on,  and  there  are  more 
analyses  in  process;  and  there  are  more  orders 
ahead,  commanding  more  omissions  and  more 
changes  in  the  interest  of  the  Book  which  the 
scholars  of  the  future  will  obey.  The  consen- 
sus of  modern  scholarship  is  the  arbiter  here; 
and  it  will  always  continue  to  be  the  arbiter. 
This  is  going  to  keep  the  Book  alive  and  fresh 
and  up  to  date;  this  is  going  to  secure  a 
true  and  scientific  interpretation  of  the  Book; 
this  is  going  to  continue  the  leadership  of  the 
Bible  in  the  world  of  mankind. 

But  it  is  not  with  the  books,  which  are  univer- 
sally admitted  into  the  Canon  of  Scripture, 
that  we  have  now  to  deal ;  it  is  with  certain  books 
against  whose  claims  to  canonicity  certain 
branches  of  the  Christian  Church  have  placed 
an  interrogation  point — viz:  the  books  of  the 
Old  Testament  Apocrypha.  Of  these  books  Bib- 
lical scholars  say:  They  have  merit,  but  they 
have  not  canonical  merit.  The  names  of  these 
disputed  books  are  as  follows :  First  and  Second 
Esdras;  Tobit;  Judith;  the  Remainder  (or  con- 
clusion) of  Esther ;  The  Wisdom  of  Solomon ;  Ec 
87 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

clesiasticus ;  Barueh,  with  the  Epistle  of  Jere- 
miah; The  Song  of  the  Three  Holy  Children; 
The  History  of  Susanna;  The  Prayer  of  Man- 
asses;  First  and  Second  Maccabees.  There  are 
many  such  Apocryphal  books.  Irenasus,  in 
one  of  his  works,  says :  ' '  There  is  an  unspeakable 
quantity  of  Apocryphal  writings. ' '  This  is  true 
relative  to  both  of  the  Testaments.  The  sixty- 
six  canonical  books  of  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ment are  picked  books.  The  choice  was  made 
from  many.  For  example,  there  are  fourteen-' 
books  in  the  Old  Testament  Apocrypha.  These 
do  not  exhaust  the  panel  of  that  period.  There 
are  fourteen  other  books  named  in  the  Old  Tes- 
tament which  have  been  wholly  lost.  They  may 
have  been  lost  in  the  exigencies  attending  the 
Babylonian  captivity;  or,  they  may  have  been 
destroyed  by  the  enemies  of  the  worship  of  Je- 
hovah. We  are  told  by  history  that  when  An- 
tiochus  Epiphanes  tried  to  annihilate  the  Jewish 
religion  and  make  Hebraism  over  into  Hellenism, 
not  only  did  he  desecrate  the  Holy  Temple  of 
Jerusalem  and  turn  it  into  the  Temple  of  the 
Olympian  Zeus,  but  he  also  destroyed  all  the 
Sacred  Writings  of  the  Jews  upon  which  he 
could  lay  hands.  Besides  the  books  contained 
in  the  list  of  the  Old  Testament  Apocrypha, 
there  are  extant  such  books  as  these :    The  Book 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 


of  Jubilees,  The  Assumption  of  Moses,  The  Psal- 
ter of  Solomon,  and  The  Book  of  Enoch.  The 
Book  of  Enoch,  which  is  quite  an  extensive  wri- 
ting, is  a  Book  of  books.  It  is  something  like 
the  book  of  Homer.  It  was  composed  in  some- 
what the  same  way  that  the  book  of  Homer  was. 
Homer's  poems  are  due  to  many  pens.  They 
were  rewritten,  and  copied,  and  reedited,  and 
touched  up  by  many  scribes.  That  was  the  way 
of  the  world,  in  dealing  with  all  books,  back  in 
antiquity.  Doubtless  the  poet,  who  gave  them 
their  final  unity,  took  great  liberties  of  excision 
and  of  interpolation.  The  sense  of  literary  prop- 
erty in  the  year  1907  A.  D.  did  not  obtain  back 
in  the  year  800  B.  C.  Every  ancient  book  of 
the  remote  past  stands  for  many  pens.  And 
what  matters  this?  Absolutely  nothing.  The 
finals  are  everything.  The  book,  as  it  now  is,  is 
everything.  Every  book  must  stand  or  fall  in 
the  judgment  according  to  what  it  is. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  number  of  books  outside 
of  the  Old  Testament  canon;  there  are  as  many 
books  outside  of  the  New  Testament  canon,  and 
even  more.  The  New  Testament  has  an  Apocry- 
pha of  its  own.  It  consists  of  twenty-four  books 
— only  three  less  than  the  number  of  the  books  in 
the  New  Testament  itself.  Besides  the  twenty-four 
New  Testament  Apocryphal  books,  my  copy  of 
89 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

the  New  Testament  Apocrypha  gives  the  names 
jsi  seventy  other  Apocryphal  writings  not  now 
extant.  The  names  of  these  have  been  gathered 
from  the  writers  of  the  first  four  centuries  of 
Christ;  these  non-extant  works  are  mentioned 
and  referred  to  in  their  writings.  Now  what 
is  the  sum  and  substance  of  all  this  ?  Why  this : 
The  books  in  our  Bible  are  the  survival  of  the 

f  -fittest.   Our  Bible  is  a  sifted  booh. 

In  taking  up  the  study  of  the  Old  Testament 
Apocrypha  we  have  two  reasons  for  so  doing: 
First,  because  broad  scholarship  demands  it;  and 
secondly,  because  it  is  part  of  the  literature  of 
the  Covenant  People  of  God,  through  whom  God 
in  an  especial  way  revealed  Himself  to  mankind. 
Broad  scholarship  demands  a  knowledge  of  the 
Old  Testament  Apocrypha.  Out  of  it  have  grown 
maxims,  and  proverbs,  and  pictures,  and  poems, 
and  dramas,  and  oratorios  and  great  hymns. 
Shakespeare  came  to  the  Apocrypha  for  his  stri- 
king similes;  and  Ruskin  for  his  art-critiques; 
and  Handel  tuned  his  harp  here,  and  gave  the 
world  his  oratorio  Judas  Maccabeus.  It  was 
here  that  Wesley  got  his  inspiration  for  that 
hymn  of  his  which  the  church  will  never  let  die, 

^Jesus,  Lover  of  My  Soul.    The  Apocrypha  is  the 
first  sacred  writing  of  the  world,  that  we  know 
of,  that  gives  God  the  name  Lover  of  Souls. 
90 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

But  this  hymn  of  Wesley  is  not  the  only  no- 
ted hymn  for  which  the  Christian  Church  is  in- 
debted to  the  Apocrypha.  The  Song  of  the  Three 
Children,  one  of  the  short  books  of  the  Apoc- 
rypha, exists  now  in  the  form  of  that  hymn 
which  is  known  as  the  Benedicite.  It  holds  an 
honored  place  in  all  the  liturgies  of  Christendom. 
Besides  this,  another  of  the  books  of  the  Apoc- 
rypha, Ecclesiasticus,  furnishes  the  church  with 
that  splendid  hymn  of  the  Germans,  Now  Thank 
We  All  Our  God.  It  is  simply  Ecclesiasticus 
50  :  22-24.  St.  Bernard  of  Clairvarnx's  great 
hymn,  Jesus,  the  Very  Thought  of  Thee,  is  noth- 
ing other  than  a  Christian  adaptation  of  Eccle- 
siasticus, chapter  24.  St.  Bernard  got  his  hymn 
here. 

It  was  here  in  the  Old  Testament  Apocrypha 
that  Milton  got  the  names  of  the  angels  who 
live  in  his  immortal  works.  There  is  no  book 
to  which  angelology  is  so  indebted.  It  was  here 
that  the  artist  of  Florence  got  the  subjects  of 
his  famous  painting  Judith  and  Holof ernes. 

The  literary  references  made  to  the  Apocry- 
pha in  the  libraries  of  the  world,  and  the  literary 
and  artistic  uses  made  of  it  by  the  scholars  and 
thinkers  of  the  world,  are  reasons  why  we  should 
study  it  and  know  it.  It  becomes  a  scholar  to  be 
posted  in  all  that  has  interested  scholars,  and  in 
91 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

sources  from  which  scholars  have  drawn.  A 
thorough  knowledge  of  it  introduces  one  into  fel- 
lowship with  Shakespeare,  and  Milton,  and  De- 
foe, and  Charles  Kingsley,  and  George  Eliot,  and 
Ruskin,  and  Addison,  and  St.  Bernard,  and  John 
Bunyan :  for  these  all  used  it.  A  knowledge  of 
it  makes  their  pages  the  more  interesting.  If  you 
know  nothing  of  the  Old  Testament  Apocrypha 
there  will  be  many  blanks  in  their  writings. 

The  story  of  John  Bunyan  and  the  Apocrypha 
is  interesting  just  here.  It  had  a  place  in  his 
life.  He  himself  tells  the  story  in  his  autobi- 
ography, Grace  Abounding.  He  was  in  great 
gloom.  He  was  seeking  light  and  comfort.  All 
at  once  there  flashed  into  his  mind  these  words  : 
"Look  at  the  generations  of  old  and  see:  did 
ever  any  trust  in  the  Lord  and  was  confounded  ? ' ' 
He  said:  "These  are  God's  words;  they  are  just 
what  I  need.  I  will  look  no  farther.  I  will  simply 
trust  God."  And  he  did;  and  the  gloom  left 
him,  and  his  soul  had  great  peace.  He  had  heard 
these  words  in  church,  and  supposed  that  they 
were  from  Holy  Writ.  But  searching  the  Bible 
he  could  not  find  them.  One  day  he  stumbled 
on  them  in  the  Apocrypha.  They  were  in  the 
eleventh  chapter  of  Ecclesiasticus.  He  says: 
"This  at  the  first  did  somewhat  daunt  me.  But 
because  by  this  time  I  had  got  more  experience 
92 


BETWEEN  THE  TESTAMENTS 

of  the  love  and  kindness  of  God,  it  troubled  me 
the  less ;  especially  when  I  considered  that  tho  it 
were  not  in  those  books  that  were  called  Holy 
and  Canonical,  yet  forasmuch  as  this  sentence 
was  the  sum  and  substance  of  many  of  the  prom- 
ises, it  was  my  duty  to  take  the  comfort  of  it; 
and  I  bless  God  for  that  word,  for  it  was  of  God 
to  me;  that  word  doth  still  shine  before  my 
face.,, 

In  the  item  of  scholarship  both  broadness  and 
thoroughness  require  us  to  have  a  knowledge  of 
the  Old  Testament  Apocrypha,  if  we  are  to  deal 
knowingly  with  the  New  Testament,  the  Book 
of  Authority  in  our  religion.  There  are  in  the 
Apocrypha  preludings  of  the  high  faith  and 
teaching  of  the  New  Testament.  While  the 
Apocrypha  is  not  directly  quoted  in  the  New 
Testament,  yet  there  are  many  examples  of  par- 
allelisms between  the  two,  which  abundantly 
show  that  the  writers  of  the  New  Testament  were 
fully  acquainted  with  the  Apocrypha  and  found 
it  helpful.  These  parallelisms  are  found  in  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  and  in  the  writings  of 
James,  and  Paul,  and  John.  In  the  doctrine  of 
Divine  Wisdom,  as  contained  in  the  Apocrypha, 
there  are  many  premonitions  of  the  Fourth  Gos- 
pel. This  is  seen  by  comparing  the  Gospel  of 
John  1 : 1-14  with  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon,  7th 

93 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

and  9th  chapters  inclusive.  Doctor  Westcott 
calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  writer  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Ephesians  was  helped  in  de- 
scribing the  Christian's  armor,  Ep.  6:13-17,  by 
Wisdom,  5:18-20.  The  Christian's  armor  is 
something  like  the  armor  of  God  Himself.  The 
armor  of  God  is  thus  described: 

But  the  righteous  live  for  ever, 

And  in  the  Lord  is  their  reward, 

And  the  care  for  them  with  the  Most  High. 

Therefore  shall  they  receive  the  crown  of  royal  dignity 

And  the  diadem  of  beauty  from  the  Lord's  hand; 

Because  with  his  right  hand  shall  he  cover  them, 

And  with  his  arm  shall  he  shield  them. 

He  shall  take  his  jealousy  as  complete  armor, 

And  shall  make  the  whole  creation 

His  weapons  for  vengeance  on  his  enemies : 

He  shall  put  on  righteousness  as  a  breastplate, 

And  shall  array  himself  with  judgment  unfeigned  as 

with  a  helmet; 
He  shall  take  holiness  as  an  invincible  shield, 
And  he  shall  sharpen  stern  wrath  for  a  sword : 
And  the  world  shall  go  forth  with  him  to  fight  against 

his  insensate  foes. 
Shafts  of  lightning  shall  fly  with  true  aim, 
And  from  the  clouds,  as  from  a  well-drawn  bow,  shall 

they  leap  to  the  mark. 

Wisdom  5:15-22. 
94 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

Dean  Plumtree  was  so  struck  with  the  coin- 
cidences of  Wisdom  with  the  Epistle  to  the  He- 
brews that  he  suggested  identity  of  authorship — 
possibly  Apollos.  He  wrote  the  first  book  before 
he  became  a  Christian,  and  the  second  book 
after  he  became  a  Christian.  Dean  Plumtree 
says:  "It  is  marvelous  how  the  writer  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  borrowed  from  Wisdom 
of  the  Apocrypha  those  splendid  phrases  by 
which  he  describes  the  Master  as  'The  bright- 
ness of  the  Father's  glory,  and  the  express  im- 
age of  his  person.'  He  took  these  from  Wis- 
dom 7 :  26,  and  bodily  applied  them  to  Jesus 
Christ,  claiming  that  they  were  verified  to  the 
full  in  Him. ' '    Wisdom  7 :  26  reads : 

Wisdom  is  a  breath  of  the  power  of  God, 
And  a  clear  effluence  of  the  glory  of  the  Almighty; 
Therefore  can  nothing  defiled  find  entrance  into  her. 
For  she  is  an  effulgence  from  everlasting  light, 
And  an  unspotted  mirror  of  the  working  of  God, 
And  an  image  of  his  goodness. 

Dean  Plumtree,  in  his  Cambridge  Commentary 
on  St.  James,  has  worked  out  an  interesting 
series  of  coincidences  of  expressions  of  no  less 
than  sixteen  in  number  between  St.  James9  Epis- 
tle and  the  book  of  Ecclesiasticus.  One  example 
95 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

will  stand  in  lieu  of  the  whole  of  Dean  Plum- 
tree's  series.  James  1:19:  "Wherefore  my  be- 
loved brethren,  let  every  man  be  swift  to  hear, 
slow  to  speak,  slow  to  wrath."  Ecclesiasticus 
5: 11:  "Be  swift  to  hear,  and  let  thy  life  be  sin- 
cere, and  with  patience  give  answer." 

Even  the  Golden  Rule  of  the  New  Testament  is 
here  in  germ-form;  if  not  indeed  somewhat 
grown.  Tobit  4 :  15  reads :  "Do  to  no  man  what 
thou  hatest."  That  is  one  form  of  the  Golden 
Rule.  It  is  here  also  in  another  form.  Eccle- 
siasticus 31 :  14 :  "  Consider  thy  neighbor 's  liking 
by  thy  own. ' '  The  gold  was  in  the  Apocrypha  in 
this  double  quantity  waiting  to  be  purified  and 
to  be  recast  by  the  Master  into  that  form  of 
beauty  and  positiveness  which  he  gave  it,  and 
which  makes  it  a  universal  power:  "Therefore 
all  things  whatsoever  ye  would  that  men  should 
do  to  you,  do  ye  even  so  to  them:  for  this  is 
the  law  and  the  prophets."    (Matt.  7: 12.) 

We  should  know  the  Apocrypha  because  it  is 
part  of  the  literature  of  the  Covenant  People  of 
God  through  whom  God  in  an  especial  way  has 
revealed  himself  to  mankind.  It  contains  the  In- 
terbiblical  History  of  the  Jews.  It  gives  us  the 
period  between  the  Testaments.  It  tells  of  the 
clash  between  Hellenism  and  Hebraism  during 
the  post-exilic  centuries,  and  how  Hebraism 
96 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

grandly  held  its  own  until  the  coming  of  Christ, 
the  great  world-teacher  who  was  to  supersede 
Socrates  and  Plato  and  Aristotle  and  the  schol- 
ars of  the  classic  ages.  The  Apocrypha  is  de- 
cidedly the  most  famous  part  of  the  literature 
belonging  to  the  centuries  between  Malachi  and 
Matthew.  Without  it  these  centuries  would  be  a 
great  blank.  It  portrays  both  the  inner  and  the 
outer  life  of  the  Messianic  people  during  the  In- 
terbiblical  period.  Without  it  we  would  know 
nothing  of  the  price*  paid  for  the  transmission 
of  the  cause  of  God  from  the  Old  dispensation  to 
the  New.  We  would  know  nothing  of  the  heroics 
of  the  House  of  the  Maccabees,  the  champions  of 
the  Law;  nor  of  the  loyal  reign  of  the  priest- 
hood; nor  of  the  Pre  and  Pos£-Maccabaean 
periods ;  nor  of  the  protection  of  the  altar.  We 
would  know  nothing  of  the  great  sacrifices  made 
by  the  martyrs,  who  sent  down  the  truths  of  the 
Old  Testament  to  posterity,  written  in  their  own 
blood.  The  Old  Testament  Apocrypha  has  a 
world  of  its  own  to  narrate  and  make  immortal. 
If  it  were  announced  that  "a  box  of  writings 
had  just  been  discovered  by  the  archeologists 
of  oriental  lands,  containing  narratives,  and  sto- 
ries, and  poems,  and  visions,  and  apocalypses, 
and  ethical  treatises,  giving  voices  to  the  Inter- 
biblical  period  of  silences  between  the  Testa- 
97 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

ments, ' '  what  a  rush  there  would  be  toward  these 
valuable  relics;  and  what  an  amount  of  study 
would  be  given  them ;  and  what  books  and  maga- 
zine articles  would  issue  from  the  press  setting 
them  before  an  interested  public !  Such  a  litera- 
ture we  have  in  these  fourteen  Greek  books 
known  as  the  Old  Testament  Apocrypha.  Let 
justice  be  done  to  this  literature!  Let  it  be 
treated  as  tho  it  were  new-found!  It  is,  as 
Doctor  Stalker  of  Glasgow  says,  "the  hack- 
ground  of  the  Life  of  Christ."  Certainly  he 
who  best  knows  it  is  best  able  to  pass  on  in  his 
Bible  study  from  the  Old  Testament  to  the  New. 
It  is  a  bridge  between  Malachi  and  Matthew. 

We  first  come  into  touch  with  the  Old  Testa- 
ment Apocrypha  when  handling  the  Septuagint, 
the  Greek  Version  of  the  Old  Testament  scrip- 
tures. It  is  part  and  parcel  of  that  Alexandrian 
canon  of  Holy  Writ.  It  is  never  found  in  the-^ 
Palestinian  or  Hebrew  canon  of  the  scriptures. 
What  precisely  regulated  the  Hebrews  in  deter- 
mining their  canon,  it  would  be  hard  to  say. 
They  admitted  nothing  that  was  not  written  in 
the  Hebrew.  They  admitted  nothing  after  the 
cessation  of  prophecy.  This  at  least  is  what  has 
been  held  by  scholars  up  to  a  late  period.  The 
books  of  the  Apocrypha  were,  therefore,  too  late 
for  canonicity.  The  Greeks  were  more  hospi- 
98 


BETWEEN   THE  TESTAMENTS 

table  to  literature  than  the  Hebrews.  They  did 
not  draw  any  linguist ical  line.  They  were  world- 
wide rulers,  and  that  gave  them  a  world-wide 
spirit.  It  liberalized  them.  The  Greek-speak- 
ing Hebrews  imperceptibly  partook  of  this 
large  spirit;  and  hence  were  more  willing  for 
a  wider  canon  of  scripture.  The  Septuagint 
was  executed  in  Egypt  about  200  B.  C,  and 
either  then  or  afterward  the  translators  incor- 
porated the  fourteen  books  of  the  Apocrypha 
with  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  evidently 
under  the  impression  that  they  were  akin 
to  them.  In  external  form  they  do  look  as  tho 
they  were  of  kin.  Some  of  them  are  his- 
torical books  like  The  Kings  and  Ezra — 
viz:  First  and  Second  Maccabees.  Some  of 
them  are  historical  romance  like  Jonah — viz: 
Tobit  and  Judith.  Some  of  them  are  an 
apocalypse  like  the  visions  of  Isaiah — viz:  Sec- 
ond Esdras.  Some  of  them  are  philosophical 
works  like  Proverbs  and  Ecclesiastes — viz:  the 
Wisdom  literature  of  the  Apocrypha.  Like 
the  Old  Testament,  the  Apocrypha  has  scattered 
through  it  both  prayers  and  psalms.  In  bulk, 
the  fourteen  books  of  the  Apocrypha  amount  to 
about  a  quarter  of  the  Old  Testament. 

From  the  very  first  the  addition  of  these  books, 
in  the  Greek  Version,  to  those  of  the  Old  Testa- 

99 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

ment  was  denounced  by  the  Jews  of  Palestine; 
but  as  the  Greek  translation,  the  Septuagint,  be- 
came more  and  more  the  Bible  of  all  worshipers 
outside  of  Palestine,  and  as  these  foreign  wor- 
shipers were  greater  in  number  than  the  Pales- 
tinian worshipers,  the  Apocrypha  was  soon  re- 
garded as  part  and  parcel  of  the  Bible.  This  was 
its  career:  It  continued  always  a  part  of  the 
Greek  Version  and  from  the  Greek  Version  it 
passed  into  the  Latin  Version,  the  Vulgate ;  and 
from  the  Vulgate  it  passed  into  the  Christian 
Church,  and  was  bound  up  in  the  Bible  thereof 
until  the  time  of  the  Reformation.  Since  the 
Reformation  it  has  had  various  treatments.  It 
has  been  both  canonicized  and  anathematized. 
It  has  been  rejected  as  part  of  the  Bible,  and  it 
has  been  accepted.  Luther,  altho  his  Bible  of 
1534  A.  D.  included  it,  finally  rejected  it  because 
his  opponents  used  texts  from  it  in  teaching  the 
intercession  of  angels,  Tobit  11 :  12-15,  and  of 
departed  saints,  2  Mace.  15 :  12-14,  and  prayers 
for  the  dead,  2  Mace.  12 :  44-45,  and  the  merit  *of 
almsgiving,  Tobit  3 :  10,  4:7;  Ecc.  3 :  30.  The 
English  Protestants  followed  the  example  of  Lu- 
ther. In  a  sermon  before  the  House  of  Commons 
in  1643,  the  preacher  complained  of  the  custom  of 
putting  the  Apocrypha  between  the  Old  Testa- 
ment and  the  New.  He  spoke  eloquently :  ' '  Thus 
100 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

sweetly  and  nearly  should  the  two  Testaments 
join  together,  and  thus  divinely  would  they  kiss 
each  other,  but  that  the  wretched  Apocrypha 
doth  thrust  in  bet  ween.' ' 

This  is  the  way  the  Westminster  Confession  of 
Faith  expresses  itself:  "The  books  commonly 
called  Apocrypha,  not  being  of  Divine  Inspira- 
tion, are  not  part  of  the  Canon  of  Scripture: 
and  therefore  are  of  no  authority  in  the  Church 
of  God,  nor  to  be  any  otherwise  approved  nor 
made  use  of,  than  other  human  writings. ' '  This 
is  the  anathema  side  of  the  story  of  the  Apoc- 
rypha. 

Its  Canonical  side  is  this:  It  started  as  part 
of  the  Bible  with  the  Greek  Canon  which  was  the 
Bible  of  all  nations  outside  of  Palestine,  and  was 
accepted  as  such.  It  got  itself  translated  into 
all  the  languages  into  which  the  Septuagint 
was  translated.  The  Apocrypha  had  its  influ- 
ence upon  many  of  the  New  Testament  writers, 
as  the  parallelisms  between  it  and  the  New  Tes- 
tament show.  It  was  quoted  as  scripture  by 
numbers  of  the  early  Christian  fathers.  Two  of 
the  great  historical  branches  of  the  Christian 
Church,  the  Greek  and  the  Roman,  the  Eastern 
and  the  Western,  containing  by  far  the  greater 
numbers  of  Christendom,  voted  it  into  the  Canon 
of  Scripture,  and  still  stand  by  that  vote.  Up 
101 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

until  a  recent  date  the  great  Church  of  England 
has  stood  with  the  Greek  and  the  Roman 
churches  in  advocating  its  canonicity.  When 
the  British  Bible  Society  was  discussing  the 
advisability  of  dropping  it  from  between  the 
Testaments  in  the  Bibles  issued  by  that  Society, 
Bishop  Wordsworth  pleaded  strongly  for  its 
retention  in  these  words:  "If  you  carry  a 
Bible  without  the  Apocryphal  books  into  Egypt, 
Greece,  Asia,  and  Palestine — that  is,  into  those 
very  countries  whence  the  Gospel  derived  its 
origin  and  language — you  would  be  told  that 
you  have  not  the  Bible,  but  only  a  mutilated 
copy  of  it.  The  Greek  Church  would  renounce 
you  as  guilty  of  sectarian  error,  if  you  present- 
ed her  with  a  Bible  not  containing  the  Apoc- 
ryphal books.  If  you  pass  over  into  Italy  and 
France,  or  to  Spain  and  Portugal,  and  endeavor 
to  circulate  such  Bibles  among  persons,  who, 
as  we  all  assert,  are  in  great  need  of  the  scrip- 
tures, they  will  immediately  say  to  you:  'This 
may  be  an  English  Bible,  but  it  is  not  the  Bible 
of  Christendom.  It  excludes  books  which  the 
Eastern  and  Western  Churches  have  never 
ceased  to  read  from  the  earliest  times  to  this 
hour.'  " 

There  is  one  thing  upon  which  all  can  agree, 
those  who  assert  its  canonicity  and  those  who 
102 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

deny  it;  and  that  is  this:  It  is  a  telling  wit- 
ness to  the  existence  and  worth  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment scriptures  which  we  all  canonize.  It  hon- 
ors the  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  the 
grand  personages  who  walk  the  pages  of  the  Old 
Testament  books,  and  the  Holy  doctrines  there- 
in taught.  It  holds  up  the  same  worship  of  the 
One  living  and  true  God,  and  it  continues  the 
history  of  the  same  Messianic  people.  It  turns 
the  Interbiblical  period  from  darkness  into 
light,  and  from  blank  spaces  into  readable  pages. 
It  explains  why  the  New  Testament  begins  as 
it  does  begin ;  and  from  the  very  start  it  makes 
us  feel  at  home  in  reading  the  Story  of  the 
Christ. 

It  is  time  now  to  let  the  Old  Testament  Apoc- 
rypha speak  for  itself.  This  we  can  do  by  pre- 
senting a  brief  analysis  of  its  books,  and  by 
giving  excerpts  from  its  pages. 

The  books  of  the  Apocrypha  are  not  all  of 
one  class — either  for  length,  or  for  value.  There 
are  some  of  the  fourteen  books  that  consist  only 
of  a  few  verses,  and  require  only  to  be  named 
with  the  briefest  comment.  Let  us  notice  these 
first.     They  are  such  as 

The  Remainder  of  Esther.  The  Book  of 
Esther  in  the  Old  Testament  canon  has  been 
objected  to,  from  time  immemorial,  because 
103 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

the  name  of  God  does  not  occur  in  the 
book.  This  fragment  of  writing  in  the  Apoc- 
rypha is  meant  to  supplement  that  supposed 
defect,  and  thus  make  the  Book  of  Esther  more 
worthy  of  canonicity.  God  is  mentioned  in 
this  fragment,  meant  to  be  added  to  the  Book  of 
Esther;  and  He  is  mentioned  over  and  over. 
Now  all  this  is  a  work  of  supererogation.  For 
every  one  can  see  that  the  Book  of  Esther  is 
simply  a  story  of  the  watchful  providence  of 
God  over  His  own.  The  Book  needs  no  supple- 
ment. 

Bel  and  the  Dragon.  This  fragment  is  sup- 
posed to  belong  to  the  end  of  the  Book  of  Dan- 
iel. Altho  Daniel  proves  the  destruction  of  Bel, 
the  false  God  and  of  the  dragon,  he  does  not 
need  this  story  to  add  to  his  greatness  nor  to 
the  fame  of  his  fidelity.  Some  one  wrote  this 
fragment  to  expose  the  impostures  of  idolatry. 
"In  his  second  part  of  Robinson  Crusoe,  Defoe, 
with  some  changes,  makes  use  of  the  Dragon  of 
this  Apocryphal  writing.' ' 

The  Prayer  of  Manasses.  This  shortest  of 
the  Apocryphal  writings  is  regarded  as  an  ap- 
pendix to  Chronicles  of  the  Old  Testament 
canon.  It  is  represented  as  being  offered  by 
Manasses,  King  of  Judah,  when  he  was  held 
captive  in  Babylon.    It  is  a  confession  of  sin  and 

104 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

a  cry  for  forgiveness.  It  would  make  a  helpful 
form  in  any  church  liturgy.  It  can  be  studied 
with  profit. 

Baruch,  with  the  Epistle  of  Jeremiah.  Ba- 
ruch,  the  scribe,  was  secretary  to  Jeremiah.  He 
shared  his  master's  exile  in  Egypt.  This  book, 
which  bears  his  name,  is  full  of  history  and 
exhortation  and  law ;  the  interpretation  of  God 's 
dealings  with  His  people;  and  prayers  of  the 
highest  order.  The  one  long  prayer  in  it,  which 
is  the  real  burden  of  the  book,  is  so  close  to  the 
prayer  recorded  in  Daniel  9 :  7-19  that  some  com- 
mentators have  been  led  to  ask:  ''Which  is  the 
original  f ' '  This  book  reads  so  much  like  the  Old 
Testament,  that  it  is  regarded  by  many  as  an 
appendix  to  Jeremiah. 

The  Song  of  the  Three  Holy  Children.  This 
Song  was  supposed  to  be  sung  by  the  martyrs, 
of  the  Book  of  Daniel,  in  the  furnace  of  fire  into 
which  they  were  cast  for  their  refusal  to  wor- 
ship the  idol.  It  is  a  Hymn  of  Adoration.  It 
has  been  embodied  in  all  the  liturgies  of  Chris- 
tendom, and  given  a  most  honored  place.  It  is 
known  as  the  Benedicite.  It  contains  a  splen- 
did protest  against  idolatry,  and  an  invoca- 
tion of  all  that  is  great  and  strong,  beautiful  and 
holy,  to  join  in  the  perpetual  benediction  of  the 
Source  of  all.  Charles  Kingsley  describes  it  as 
105 


BETWEEN   THE  TESTAMENTS 

the  very  crown  and  flower  of  the  Old  Testament. 
The  very  monotony  of  form,  with  its  accumula- 
ted doxologies,  is  itself  effective.  It  runs  thus: 
"  O  all  ye  works  of  the  Lord,  bless  ye  the  Lord : 
Praise  and  exalt  him  above  all  forever."  Again 
and  again  and  again  sounds  forth  the  refrain: 
"Praise  and  exalt  him  above  all  forever." 
Kingsley  writes :  "  It  is  like  the  monotony  of  the 
winds  and  the  waves,  and  powerfully  suggests  to 
the  imagination  the  amplitude  and  splendor  of 
God's  world  by  the  sublimity  of  its  universal 
chorus  of  praise." 

So  much  for  the  shorter  books  of  the  Apoc- 
rypha. Let  us  look  next  at  those  that  are  much 
longer.    They  are  such  as  these: 

The  History  of  Susanna.  Susanna  was  the 
pure  wife  of  a  pure  man  in  Israel.  Her  story 
reminds  us  of  the  story  of  Joseph's  tempta- 
tion by  Potiphar's  wife;  only  in  this  case  the 
tempters  are  men.  Two  of  the  elders  of  Is- 
rael, smitten  by  her  beauty,  planned  to  seduce 
her.  She  resisted  them.  In  revenge  they  sought 
her  condemnation  and  death.  They  swore  that 
they  found  her  in  compromising  relations  with 
a  young  man,  and  had  her  convicted  of  un- 
faithfulness to  her  husband,  and  sentenced  to  be 
stoned.  They  told  her  they  would  do  this  if 
she  did  not  yield  to  them.  Her  reply  was:  "It 
106 


BETWEEN   THE  TESTAMENTS 

is  better  to  fall,  as  ye  threaten,  than  to  sin  in  the 
sight  of  the  Lord. ' '  When  Susanna  was  led  forth 
to  be  put  to  death,  young  Daniel  comes  upon 
the  scene.  He  is  full  of  indignation.  Lifting  up 
his  voice  he  cries :  * '  I  am  clear  from  the  blood  of 
this  woman."  Then  all  the  people  turned  them 
toward  him,  and  said:  "What  mean  these  words 
that  thou  hast  spoken  ?"  So  he  standing  in  the 
midst  of  them  said:  "Are  ye  such  fools,  ye  sons 
of  Israel,  that  without  examination,  or  knowledge 
of  the  truth,  ye  have  condemned  a  daughter  of 
Israel !  Eeturn  again  to  the  place  of  judgment ; 
for  they  have  borne  false  witness  against  her." 
Wherefore  all  the  people  turned  again  in  haste, 
and  the  elders  said  unto  him:  "Come  sit  down 
among  us,  and  show  it  us,  seeing  God  hath 
given  thee  the  honor  of  an  elder."  Then  Daniel 
said  unto  them:  "Put  these  two  aside  far  from 
one  another,  and  I  will  examine  them. ' '  So  when 
they  were  put  asunder,  he  called  one  of  them  and 
said  unto  him:  "O  thou  that  art  waxen  old  in 
wickedness,  now  thy  sins  are  come  to  light.  For 
thou  hast  condemned  the  innocent  and  have  let 
the  guilty  go  free ;  albeit  the  Lord  saith,  'The  in- 
nocent and  the  righteous  shalt  thou  not  slay.' 
Now  then,  if  thou  hast  seen  her,  tell  me  under 
what  tree  sawest  thou  them  companying  to- 
gether?" Who  answered:  " Under  a  Mostick 
107 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

tree."  And  Daniel  said:  "Right  well  hast 
thou  lied  against  thine  own  head;  for  even  now 
the  angel  of  the  Lord  hath  received  sentence  of 
God  to  cut  thee  in  two." 

So  he  put  him  aside  and  commanded  to  bring 
the  other  and  said  unto  him:  "0  thou  seed  of 
Canaan,  and  not  of  Judah,  beauty  hath  de- 
ceived thee,  and  lust  hath  perverted  thine  heart. 
But  this  daughter  of  Judah  would  not  abide 
your  wickedness.  Now  therefore  tell  me,  under 
what  tree  didst  thou  take  them  companying 
together?"  Who  answered  him:  "Under  a 
Holem  tree."  Then  said  Daniel  unto  him: 
"Right  well  hast  thou  also  lied  against  thine 
own  head ;  for  the  angel  of  God  waiteth  with  the 
sword  to  cut  thee  in  two  that  he  may  destroy 
thee."  With  that  all  the  assembly  cried  out 
with  a  loud  voice  and  praised  God  who  saveth 
them  that  trust  in  Him.  And  they  arose  against 
the  two  elders,  whom  Daniel  had  convicted  of 
false  witness  by  their  own  mouth,  and  they  did 
unto  them  according  to  the  Law  of  Moses;  and 
they  put  them  to  death.  From  that  day  forth 
was  Daniel  had  in  great  reputation  in  the  sight 
of  the  people. 

It  was  here  that  Shakespeare  got  those  words 
which  he  put  into  the  mouth  of  Shylock : 

108 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

"A  Daniel  come  to  judgment !  yea,  a  Daniel ! 
0  wise  young  judge,  how  I  honor  thee!" 

The  early  Christians  were  fond  of  this  book  in 
the  days  of  their  persecution ;  so  in  the  catacombs 
we  find  Susanna  pictured  in  her  innocence,  rep- 
resenting the  innocent  Lamb  of  the  Church  be- 
tween the  wolves  ready  to  destroy  her.  The  story 
inspires  faith  in  God.  It  also  sets  into  the  light 
the  value  of  cross-examination  in  courts  of  justice 
as  a  means  of  getting  at  the  facts  of  a  case. 

There  are  two  charming  historical  romances  in 
the  Apocrypha:  Judith  and  Tobit. 

No  description,  or  series  of  quotations,  could 
do  these  two  books  justice.  They  must  be  read 
in  their  entirety  to  be  known  and  appreciated. 
The  book  of  Judith  is  a  romance  with  a  political 
motive.  It  sets  forth  the  power  of  woman's 
beauty.  Like  Queen  Esther,  in  Israel's  extrem- 
ity, Judith  consecrates  her  beauty  to  the  cause 
of  country,  and  by  it  wins.  Do  not  hold  up 
holy  hands  in  horror,  and  cry:  What  if  Holo- 
fernes  had  succeeded  in  carrying  out  the  dic- 
tates of  his  lust!  He  did  not  succeed.  He  lost 
his  head,  and  Judith  proved  herself  to  be  to  her 
country  another  Jael,  the  wife  of  Heber. 
Judith  was  not  a  second  Delilah.  She  was  not 
in  any  sense  that  type  of  woman.     She  was  a 

109 


BETWEEN   THE  TESTAMENTS 

pure  woman.  Her  heroic  plans  grew  out  of  her 
faith  in  God.  Only  a  woman  of  faith  could  dare 
what  she  dared.  She  was  a  woman  of  prayer; 
and  we  have  recorded  here  the  prayer  which  she 
offered  on  the  threshold  of  her  venture.  We  have 
here,  too,  the  psalm  of  praise  which  she  sang 
in  celebration  of  the  victory  which  God  gave  her 
and  her  people.  The  motto  of  the  story  written 
large  is :  "  Our  fathers  trusted  in  thee  and  thou 
didst  deliver  them."  Ruskin  in  his  Mornings 
in  Florence,  studying  that  celebrated  painting 
of  Judith  and  Eolof ernes,  writes  of  Judith: 
1 '  The  conception  of  facts  and  the  ideas  of  Jewish 
womanhood  are  here,  grand  and  real  as  a  marble 
statue,  a  possession  for  all  ages.  .  .  .  She  is 
not  merely  the  Jewish  Delilah  to  the  Assyrian 
Sampson ;  but  the  mightiest,  purest,  highest  type 
of  high  passion  in  severe  womanhood  offered  to 
our  human  memory. " 

Not  a  word  about  Tobit  with  its  angelic 
ministrations,  its  courtship  and  marriage.  Of 
Tobit 's  Job-like  experience,  and  of  the  grand 
ending  of  his  life, — not  a  word.  Read  this  book 
of  the  Apocrypha  and  be  charmed.  Read  it, 
and  learn  of  the  Providential  Hand  in  the  life 
of  the  man  of  God.  Nothing  in  The  Arabian 
Nights  is  more  magical,  more  bewitching,  more 
satisfying.     In  the  1549  Version  of  the  Angli- 

110 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

can  prayer-book,  the  benediction-prayer  of  the 
marriage  service  makes  use  of  the  Book  of  Tobit. 
It  reads:  "0  God,  as  Thou  didst  send  thy  an- 
gel Raphael  to  Tobias  and  Sara  the  daughter  of 
Raguel,  to  their  great  comfort;  so  vouchsafe  to 
send  Thy  blessing  upon  these  thy  servants.' ' 

There  are  two  books  in  the  Apocrypha  known 
by  the  name  Esdras. 

Esdras  is  the  Greek  form  of  Ezra.  These 
books  were  probably  written  just  before  the  days 
of  Christ;  or,  about  the  very  time  of  Christ. 
First  Esdras  is  a  resetting  of  the  story  of  the 
Jews'  return  from  captivity;  which  we  have  in 
Chronicles,  Nehemiah,  and  Ezra  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament. It  was  out  of  this  book  that  our  famous 
saying  grew — viz:  "Truth  is  mighty  and  will 
prevail. ' '  These  are  the  words  of  First  Esdras : 
"Truth  abideth  and  is  strong  forever:  she  liv- 
eth  and  conquereth  forevermore.  .  .  .  Blessed 
be  the  God  of  truth." 

Second  Esdras  is  by  far  the  more  important 
of  the  books  of  Esdras.  "It  is  only  in  the  Re- 
vised Version  that  the  complete  book  is  put  into 
the  hands  of  English  readers:  for  by  a  discov- 
ery made  in  1875  A.  D.  by  Professor  Bensly, 
a  new  chapter  was  discovered  at  Amiens."  It 
is  an  apocalypse.  It  was  widely  adopted  by 
Christians  and  the  critics  say  was  interpo- 
111 


BETWEEN   THE  TESTAMENTS 

lated  by  a  Christian  hand.  "Filled  with  bitter 
disappointment  as  Judea's  hard  fate,  the  author 
was  possest  by  the  great  hope  of  the  coming 
rule  of  God  under  the  scepter  of  a  Son  of  Man. 
This  is  the  central  tenet  of  the  author's  faith." 
Three  out  of  the  six  dreams  of  the  book  are 
studied  dialogs. 

1.  "Why  has  God  made  this  sinful  and  sor- 
rowing world  ? ' '  The  angel  of  light  answers  that 
many  problems  are  beyond  man's  power  of  solu- 
tion. "Why  then  was  understanding  given  to 
man,  if  he  is  not  to  solve  difficult  questions?" 
And  the  angel  answers  that  the  next  age  will 
bring  the  solution,  and  gives  signs  of  the  ap- 
proaching end  very  similar  to  the  signs  detailed 
in  Matt.  24. 

2.  "Why  has  God  chosen  the  people  of  Is- 
rael and  endowed  them  with  this  truth  only  to 
allow  them  to  be  trodden  under  foot  of  all  men  f ' ' 
The  angel  replies  that  God  loves  his  people  more 
than  Esdras  does  or  can.  "Canst  thou  under- 
stand all  that  God  understands?"  He  Himself 
will  judge  and  rectify  the  world. 

3.  "Why  do  not  God's  chosen  ones  possess 
the  world  ? ' '  The  angel  declares  that  the  present 
strait  and  difficult  road  leads  assuredly  to  a  bet- 
ter future,  which  will  be  brought  in  by  God's 
anointed  Son.     The  compassionate  character  of 

112 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

God  is  sufficient  assurance  that  this  must  be 
so. 

There  is  a  close  parallelism  between  Esdras 
and  the  teaching  of  the  early  Christians ;  so  much 
so,  that  it  is  difficult  to  avoid  the  conclusion 
that  chapters  1,  2,  15  and  16  are  by  a  Christian 
hand.    To  this  most  authorities  agree. 

"This  strange  book  gives  to  angelology  the 
archangel  Uriel  to  complete  the  glorious  quar- 
ternion — Michael,  Gabriel,  Raphael,  and  Uriel — 
who  stood  on  the  four  corners  of  the  throne  of 
God.  It  also  sets  on  foot  the  legend  of  the  Lost 
Tribes  of  Israel  mysteriously  hidden  in  the 
depths  of  the  East,  awaiting  the  day  in  which 
the  Messiah  shall  lead  them  back  to  their  own 
land." 

There  are  two  books  of  Maccabees  in  the  Apoc- 
rypha. 

The  First  is  written  by  a  Sadducee;  the  Sec- 
ond is  written  by  a  Pharisee.  The  First  deals 
in  sober  narration  of  historical  facts.  It  is 
wholly  objective.  The  Second  goes  behind  the 
facts  and  gives  the  subjective  life  of  the  Macca- 
bees. It  makes  out  that  they  were  men  of  visions, 
and  ideals,  and  therefore  men  of  action.  Here 
is  where  we  get  our  history  of  the  Interbiblical 
period,  the  period  between  the  Two  Testaments. 
It  fills  the  gap  of  the  silent  centuries.  Here  is 
113 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

where  we  learn  of  the  change  of  the  World- 
power  from  the  East  to  the  West :  from  the  Per- 
sian to  the  Grecian.  Here  is  where  we  learn 
of  the  men  and  the  measures,  the  wars  and  the 
martyrdoms  which  make  the  Heroic  and  Post- 
exilic  era  of  the  Palestinian  Jews.  The  Cove- 
nant-purpose of  God  was  on  the  march  to  Beth- 
lehem and  Calvary ;  and  nothing  was  able  to  stop 
it.    Everything  helped  it  on. 

The  story  of  the  Maccabees  has  not  had  its 
best  and  final  telling  as  yet.  It  awaits  a  compe- 
tent and  future  historian.  A  great  host  of  things 
has  got  to  be  gathered,  and  weighed,  and  sifted, 
and  properly  estimated,  and  rightly  related.  It 
is  at  this  point  that  the  Old  Testament  Apocry- 
pha shall  yet  serve  the  world. 

The  Wisdom  Literature  of  the  Apocrypha  re- 
mains to  be  noticed.  This  literature  consists  of 
two  books:  the  book  of  Ecclesiasticus  f  and  the 
book  of  The  Wisdom  of  Solomon.  Both  of  these 
are  long  books:  Ecclesiasticus  having  fifty-one 
chapters  and  The  Wisdom  of  Solomon  having 
nineteen  chapters.  These  are  considerd  the 
finest  books  of  the  Apocrypha. 

The  book  of  Ecclesiasticus  is  of  a  type  similar 
to  the  Old  Testament  book  of  Proverbs.  It  is 
just  twice  as  long  as  the  book  of  Proverbs.  It 
is  the  oldest  known  Apocryphan.    It  is  preceded 

114 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

by  a  graceful  preface,  in  which  the  author  says 
that  he  translated  the  book  into  Greek  while  in 
Egypt  under  the  reign  of  Euergetes — i.  e.,  about 
the  year  130  B.  C.  The  book  he  tells  us  was 
written  by  his  grandfather,  and  in  Hebrew. 
His  grandfather's  name  was  Jesus — " Jesus  the 
son  of  Sirach. ' '  This  book  like  the  book  of  Prov- 
erbs has  Wisdom  for  its  theme;  and  on  this 
theme  the  writer  pours  forth  all  his  resources 
in  eulogies  upon  Wisdom  like  the  eulogies  which 
we  find  in  the  books  of  Job  and  Proverbs.  The 
book  also  discusses  how  a  man  shall  bear  himself 
wisely  and  avoid  foolishness  in  all  the  depart- 
ments of  life — in  one's  table-manners;  in  one's 
money-matters;  in  social  intercourse;  in  the 
home;  in  the  state;  et  al.  The  book  treats  of 
the  divine  order  of  the  world ;  and  here  the  au- 
thor soars  so  high  that  he  finds  relief  for  his 
pent-up  feelings  only  in  an  outburst  of  prayer. 
The  book  ends  with  what  is  known  as  the  grand 
Hymn  of  the  Forefathers  which  reminds  one  of 
the  famous  eleventh  chapter  of  "The  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews."  We  have  here  in  enlarged  form 
what  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  we  have  in 
striking  and  condensed  form.  Let  me  give  a 
few  selections  from  Ecclesiasticus !  The  golden 
rule  is  here:  "Consider  thy  neighbor's  liking 
by  thine  own. ' '     Chap.   31 :  15.     The  contam- 

115 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

ination  of  bad  association  is  here:  "He  that 
toucheth  pitch  shall  be  defiled. "  Chap.  13:  1. 
Here  also  is  the  backbone  of  honesty:  "Speak 
not  against  the  truth  and  be  not  abashed  for 
thine  ignorance.  Be  not  ashamed  to  make  con- 
fession of  thy  sins,  nor  swim  against  the  stream 
of  conviction. ' '    Chapter  4 :  25. 

On  friendship  I  select  this  fragment:  "Noth- 
ing is  to  be  taken  in  exchange  for  a  friend.' ' 
"Forsake  not  an  old  friend,  for  the  new  is  not 
comparable  to  him."  "As  new  wine  so  is  a 
new  friend:  if  it  become  old  thou  shalt  drink 
it  with  gladness."  Addison  in  the  Spectator, 
No.  78,  thus  comments  on  what  the  author  says 
of  friendship:  "How  finely  he  describes  the 
art  of  making  friends  by  obliging  and  affable 
behavior!  With  what  prudence  doth  he  cau- 
tion us  in  the  choice  of  friends!  With  what 
strokes  of  nature,  I  could  almost  say  of  humor, 
has  he  described  the  behavior  of  a  treacherous 
and  self-interested  friend!  I  am  wonderfully 
pleased  with  this  sentence  of  his  in  which  he 
speaks  of  the  rewards  of  true  friendship:  'A 
virtuous  man  shall  as  a  blessing  meet  with  a 
friend  who  is  as  virtuous  as  himself  V  " 

His  teaching  on  forgiveness  is  strangely  pro- 
phetic of  Christian  ethics:  "Forgive  thy  neigh- 
bor the  hurt  he  hath  done  unto  thee,  so  shalt  thy 
116 


BETWEEN  THE  TESTAMENTS 

sins  be  forgiven  thee  when  thou  prayest.  One 
man  beareth  hatred  against  his  brother ;  and  doth 
he  seek  pardon  from  the  Lord?"  Chap.  28:2-3. 
Here  is  the  humanitarianism  he  teaches:  "Be 
as  a  father  unto  the  fatherless,  and  instead 
of  a  husband  unto  their  mother :  so  shalt  thou  be 
a  son  of  the  Most  High,  and  He  shall  love  thee 
more  than  thy  mother  doth. "  ' '  Be  not  wanting 
to  them  that  weep;  and  mourn  with  them  that 
mourn.  Be  not  slow  to  visit  a  sick  man ;  for  by 
such  things  thou  shalt  gain  love." 

For  the  close  of  the  Book  of  Ecclesiasticus 
we  have  The  Hymn  of  the  Forefathers.  It  begins 
on  this  wise  (I  give  simply  its  prelude) :  "Let 
us  now  praise  famous  men,  and  our  fathers  who 
begat  us.  Such  as  bore  rule  in  their  kingdoms 
and  were  men  renowned  for  their  power,  giving 
counsel  by  their  understanding;  such  as  have 
brought  tidings  in  prophecies;  leaders  of  the 
people  by  their  counsels,  wise  were  their  words 
of  instruction ;  such  as  sought  out  musical  tunes 
and  set  verses  in  writing;  rich  men  furnished 
with  ability,  living  peaceably  in  their  habita^ 
tions.  All  these  were  honored  in  their  genera- 
tion, and  were  a  glory  in  their  day. ' ' 

Then  follows  a  note  of  pathos  singularly  mov- 
ing in  its  power:  "There  be  some  who  have 
no  memorial,  who  are  perished  as  tho  they  had 
117 


BETWEEN   THE  TESTAMENTS 

not  been,  and  who  are  become  as  tho  they  had  not 
been  born,  and  their  children  after  them.  But 
these  were  men  of  mercy  whose  righteous  deeds 
have  not  been  forgotten.  .  .  .  Their  bodies  are 
buried  in  peace  but  their  name  liveth  to  all  gen- 
erations. Peoples  will  declare  their  wisdom  and 
the  congregation  will  tell  out  their  praise.' ' 

This  splendid  tribute  of  reverence  for  the  dead 
is  read  wherever  the  illustrious  of  Christendom 
are  committed  to  the  grave.  Artist,  thinker, 
prophet,  hero,  psalmist,  priest,  warrior,  king, 
philanthropist, — all  have  their  place  in  this  roll 
of  fame  and  are  praised.  Read  this  hymn  and 
feel  its  uplift ! 

I  mention  next  The  Book  of  the  Wisdom  of 
Solomon.  This  book,  which  is  called  "the  gem 
of  the  whole  Apocrypha,"  was  written  from  the 
year  50*  to  100  B.  C.  Its  place  of  origin  was 
Alexandria,  Egypt.  The  author  was  a  great 
writer,  using  almost  classical  Greek.  He  was  an 
Alexandrian  Jew.  There  is  not  a  Greek  book  in 
scripture  that  can  be  compared  with  this  book 
for  strength  of  style,  unless  it  be  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews.  It  is  studied  rhetoric  highly 
wrought,  such  as  they  loved  in  the  later  era  of 
Greek  literature. 

The  book  is  entitled  The  Wisdom  of  Solomon 
— L  e.,  it  affects  to  have  Solomon  as  its  author. 

118 


BETWEEN  THE  TESTAMENTS 

In  those  days  it  was  common  to  ascribe  to  books 
the  names  of  famous  men;  not  for  the  purpose 
of  deception,  but  for  the  very  same  reason  that 
Robert  Burns  when  expressing  his  high  patri- 
otic feelings,  put  them  in  the  mouth  of  Wallace 
at  the  battle  of  Bannockburn.  For  a  like  reason 
this  book  of  Wisdom  is  ascribed  to  Solomon. 

The  writer's  purpose  is  fairly  evident  through^ 
out  the  book.  The  Jews  were  scattered  through 
foreign  lands  and  peculiarly  open  to  skeptic  and 
Pagan  influences.  They  were  beginning  to  feel 
the  attraction  of  Greek  thought.  He  writes, 
therefore,  to  strengthen  his  compatriots  in  an 
intelligent  grasp  of  religion  by  declaring  the 
high  truths  of  Divine  Wisdom.  His  cardinal 
thesis  is  that  the  universe  is  penetrated  through- 
out by  the  living  presence  of  wisdom,  the  power 
that  shapes  and  directs  all  things.  This  wisdom  is 
a  personality  which  emanates  from  God.    Listen ! 

Wisdom!  there  is  in  her  a  spirit  quick  of  under- 
standing, holy, 
Alone  in  kind,  manifold, 
Subtile,  freely  moving, 
Clear  in  utterance,  unpolluted, 
Distinct,  unharmed, 

Loving  what  is  good,  keen,  unhindered, 
Beneficent,  loving  toward  man, 

119 


BETWEEN    THE   TESTAMENTS 

Stedfast,  sure,  free  from  care, 

All-powerful,  all-surveying, 

And  penetrating  through  all  spirits 

That  are  quick  of  understanding,  pure,  most  subtile: 

For  wisdom  is  more  mobile  than  any  motion; 

Yea,   she  pervadeth  and  penetrateth  all  things  by 

reason  of  her  pureness. 
For  she  is  a  breath  of  the  power  of  God, 
And  a  clear  effluence  of  the  glory  of  the  Almighty; 
Therefore  can  nothing  denied  find  entrance  into  her. 
For  she  is  an  effulgence  from  everlasting  light, 
And  an  unspotted  mirror  of  the  working  of  God, 
And  an  image  of  his  goodness. 
And  she,  being  one,  hath  power  to  do  all  things; 
And  remaining  in  herself,  reneweth  all  things: 
And  from  generation  to  generation  passing  into  holy 

souls 
She  maketh  men  friends  of  God,  and  prophets. 
For  nothing  doth  God  love  save  him  that  dwelleth 

with  wisdom. 
For  she  is  fairer  than  the  sun, 
And  above  all  the  constellations  of  the  stars: 
Being  compared  with  light,  she  is  found  to  be  before 

it; 
For  to  the  light  of  day  suceeedeth  night, 
But  against  wisdom  evil  doth  not  prevail; 
But  she  reacheth  from  one  end  of  the  world  to  the 

other  with  full  strength, 
120 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

And  ordereth  all  things  graciously. 

Her  I  loved  and  sought  out  from  my  youth, 

And  I  sought  to  take  her  for  my  bride, 

And  I  became  enamored  of  her  beauty. 

She  glorifieth  her  noble  birth  in  that  it  is  given  her 
to  live  with  God, 

And  the  Sovereign  Lord  of  all  loved  her. 

For  she  is  initiated  into  the  knowledge  of  God, 

And  she  chooseth  out  for  him  his  works. 

But  if  riches  are  a  desired  possession  in  life, 

What  is  richer  than  wisdom,  which  worketh  all  things? 

And  if  understanding  worketh, 

Who  more  than  wisdom  is  an  artificer  of  the  things 
that  are? 

And  if  a  man  loveth  righteousness, 

The  fruits  of  wisdom's  labor  are  virtues, 

For  she  teacheth  soberness  and  understanding,  right- 
eousness and  courage; 

And  there  is  nothing  in  life  for  men  more  profitable 
than  these. 

Wisdom  7. 

This  magnificent  description  of  wisdom  has 
been  pronounced  one  of  the  noblest  passages  of 
human  eloquence.  It  has  been  placed  alongside 
of  the  Hymn  of  Cleanthes,  and  the  Visions  of 
Plato;  and  there  it  deserves  to  be  placed. 

Among  the  chief  excellencies  of  this  book  of 
121 


BETWEEN  THE  TESTAMENTS 

Wisdom  is  its  teachings  on  immortality.  This 
doctrine  may  be  shadowed  forth  by  other  writers 
of  the  times  before  Christ,  but  here  it  shines 
with  all  the  prismatic  radiance  of  the  light.  The 
author  founds  his  doctrine  of  immortality  on 
two  of  the  strongest  bases — viz:  the  imper- 
fection of  life  without  it,  and  the  everlasting 
goodness  of  God.  These  are  some  of  his  words, 
and  they  are  the  last  which  I  quote :  ' '  By  single- 
ness of  heart  alone  is  God  found ;  the  pure  shall 
live  with  God. "  " God  made  not  death. "  "To 
know  Thee,  0  God,  is  perfect  righteousness ;  yea, 
to  know  thy  power  is  the  root  of  immortality .' ' 
"The  just  man  boasteth  that  God  is  his  Father, 
and  that  he  is  God's  son."  "Thou  sparest  all, 
for  they  are  thine,  O  Sovereign  Lord,  Thou 
Lover  of  souls. "  "  God  created  man  for  immor- 
tality, and  made  him  an  image  of  His  own  eter- 
nity." "The  souls  of  the  righteous  are  in  the 
hand  of  God;  in  the  eyes  of  the  unwise  they 
seem  to  perish,  but  they  are  in  happiness.  Their 
hope  is  full  of  eternity."  My  fellow  men,  this 
teaching  brings  us  pretty  close  to  the  dictum  of 
the  New  Testament.  We  are  ready  now  for  the 
Christ  who  illumines  life  and  immortality. 

Such  is  the  Old  Testament  Apocrypha!     It 
is  a  whole  library  of  books ;  in  which  we  find  sa- 
cred histories,  and  holy  romances,  and  thrilling 
122 


BETWEEN   THE   TESTAMENTS 

songs  of  praise,  and  broad  and  uplifting  prayers, 
and  apocalypses  that  glow  with  the  Light  of 
Heaven.  There  may  be,  and  there  is,  some  dross 
here,  but  there  is  a  lot  of  pure  gold;  and  that 
gold  is  gold  of  the  seventh  refining.  It  has  in  it 
utterances  that  carry  in  them  divine  authority 
— i.  e.,  the  authority  of  conviction.  These  ut- 
terances have  spiritual  power  over  the  human 
soul.  They  meet  with  an  approving  response. 
They  win  the  assent  of  the  mind,  and  the  con- 
sent of  the  conscience,  and  the  sanction  of  aU 
the  faculties.  This  is  the  only  authority  that 
any  set  of  writings  can  have.  ' '  It  is  the  author- 
ity of  inherent  spiritual  excellence,  bearing  its 
own  weight,  making  its  own  impress,  winning  its 
own  sweet  way  among  men,  and  gaining  their 
admiration,  and  purifying  and  invigorating  the 
spirit  and  character  of  mankind."  The  Apoc- 
rypha is  literature  of  no  mean  order.  Every 
here  and  there  it  gives  us  sublime  and  capti- 
vating climaxes,  and  these  climaxes  illustrate 
and  prove  the  truth  of  the  beautiful  Hebrew 
Proverb:  ''Words  fitly  spoken  are  like  apples  of 
gold  in  pictures  of  silver."  These  climaxes  are 
the  veritable  silver  and  gold  of  Holy  literature. 
They  are  the  Truth  of  God  in  the  form  of 
strength  and  beauty. 

123 


BETWEEN   THE  TESTAMENTS 

All  these  things  are  the  Book  of  the  covenant  of  the 
Most  High  God, 

Even  the  law  which  Moses  commanded  us  for  a  her- 
itage unto  the  assemblies  of  Jacob. 

It  is  He  that  maketh  wisdom  abundant,  as  Pishon, 

And  as  Tigris  in  the  days  of  new  fruits; 

That  maketh  understanding  full  as  Euphrates, 

And  as  Jordan  in  the  days  of  harvest; 

That  maketh  instruction  to  shine  forth  as  the  light, 

As  Gihon  in  the  days  of  vintage, 

The  first  man  knew  her  not  perfectly; 

And  in  like  manner  the  last  hath  not  traced  her  out. 

For  her  thoughts  are  filled  from  the  sea, 

And  her  counsels  from  the  great  deep. 

Ecclesiasticus  24:23-29, 


124 


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